Conference Weekend

Usually after sleeping somewhere else for a night or more I crave the comfort of my own bed. Not this time, however. Andrew's parents went to Las Vegas for the weekend to hear the music and feel the passion of Barry Manilow, leaving us to hold up the home front. We slept in their big, fluffy, king-size bed. I did not want to get out of bed in the morning and now our bed just feels so-so.

At least Rachel sleeps through the night here. She didn't over there. First, she didn't want to go to bed because there is a piano in the guest room and it was much more interesting than sleeping.

Will somebody open this for me?

After piling pillows up around the mattress, turning off the light, and closing the door, I left her to her own devices. She was still crying after ten minutes so I tried to go back in and check on her but I couldn't open the door.

Rachel grabbed her favorite blanket, crawled over to the door, and had lain down right in front of it. I slowly pushed the door, and Rachel, open, picked her up, gave her a hug and kiss and put her back down on the mattress.

The next time I checked on her she had fallen asleep, but it didn't last long. She woke up soon after Emily arrived home from her date and about every hour after that. And the one night I get to sleep in an exquisitely comfortable bed, too!


Saturday morning, Rachel woke up for the day between seven and eight, as did Uncle Jacob. He came and took her from us and started playing with her, so we went back to bed. Turnabout's fair play: we were babysitting Jacob and he babysat Rachel. It was nice to get to sleep in.

We got up just in time to eat breakfast before General Conference started. It's a good thing we had breakfast, too! Rachel was as busy as ever during conference and we all took turns entertaining and being entertained by Rachel. Except me. I will admit to sleeping through the first session of conference--my excuse is that I was up all night with Rachel. How she stayed awake the whole time will remain a mystery.

Rachel and Auntie Em

Rachel and Uncle Jay-Bro

I think Rachel spent half the weekend with her tongue sticking out

Beware of baby

We spent Saturday night at our house and Rachel, thankfully, slept through the night. However, we did not watch conference at home. Our television hasn't been receiving any channels for quite some time now so we don't watch any television at home. We went to my parent's house on Sunday morning instead.

Rachel wanted to play all through the first session and no matter how many times I tried to get her to take a nap she would not close her eyes. I handed her over to my dad right at the end of conference and he had rocked her to sleep in about five minutes.

Napping on the floor

She slept for quite a long time, but woke up in time for the nerf gun war that we had between sessions. There are no pictures because I was also involved. We shot everything in sight, including Rachel, but mostly each other.

After we showed Rachel how to play rough, Auntie Josie decided that it would be a good idea to show her how to play nice by teaching her how to pet kitties. Lahki is afraid of little children and she runs away whenever she sees Rachel, even though Rachel has never touched her before. But Josie caught caught and held her still while Rachel proded, pulled, poked and, eventually petted.

It looks like they learned how to get along.

This is the way we pet the cat...

Oooh! She's soft!

We went back over to Andrew's parents' house for the last session of conference and had a lovely crepe dinner afterwards. Rachel had a fun time playing with Grandpa. She crawled up the big flight of stairs twice in a row! She's never done that before.

Her first encounter with stairs was at the Provo Library a few weeks ago. She climbed it, but it was only one stair.

Her second encounter was a church last Sunday during combined Preisthood/Relief Society. Andrew was up at the piano in the chapel and Rachel and I were sitting in the first row of benches. She wanted to visit Daddy so she crawled right over to the stand and climbed up the stairs. But that was only two or three stairs.

This was a full stair case and she did it two times! Now we just need to teach her how to go down them backwards so that she doesn't hurt herself.

Stairs is so hard...

...but so fun!

Grandpa wore her right out!

That's twice in one day that I wasn't able to get my baby to sleep but a Grandpa was!

Conference weekend was a lot of fun, but we were happy to have today at home to rest up a bit. Being away from home for that long was a little hard on Rachel. She just likes her own things in her own house.

Rachel's take on Provident Living

My friend Bridget once mused that she wasn't sure when to give her daughter a pillow. Almost every parenting book out there recommends that you not put your baby to bed with blankets, pillows, or stuffed animals. And, not that I've read many parenting books at all, they also recommend that you start offering your baby a "comfort item," such as a blanket or stuffed animal.

How are you supposed to establish a "comfort item" and then not put your baby to bed with it? That's my question. Our baby certainly goes to bed with her blankies. We tried putting her to bed without them once and it was a dreadful experience. I think I understand about the pillow thing, though, because the baby's airway is too delicate and bends too easily to have it be on a pillow. But really, when can you give a baby a pillow? When is a baby no longer a baby?

I realize that Rachel is still a baby and is probably still too young for a pillow, but I'm not sure that she concurs. She has recently started to extemporize pillows during nap time. Here she is using her doll's head to cushion her own.


In addition to making her own pillows, our self-sufficient baby likes to scout around for her own sources of water. I'm tempted to start leaving sippy cups full of water laying around, something I said I'd never do, just to discourage her from venturing into the bathroom to quench her thirst... kind of like how they feed the animals in the zoo to keep them from eating the people.

Here's Rachel helping me unload the dishwasher. It seems we're always unloading the dishwasher, doesn't it?


"I'm going to turn my back now which means I won't be watching you," I warned her, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Oh, I won't, Mom," she assured me with her devious looking smile.


The fact that it was a devious smile should have been a tip off that she was about to misbehave, but I turned my back anyway. The silverware had to be put away. What's a mother to do?

While I was busy sorting through spoons and forks, I heard a slurping noise so I turned around, very quickly, to see what it was. Rachel was drinking water off the dishwasher door.

There had been a container that hadn't dried off all the way yet and had a puddle of water sitting on it--you know the gross left-over dish water that has the little floaties in it--but it had since been tipped over and Rachel was busy cleaning up her little spill. Oh, yum.


Sometimes I'm not sure where she gets her ingenuity, but if our family ever gets lost in the woods without water or pillows I think we'll be glad we have her!

Two Thirds Richer

"So, I got an email from AUC this morning," Andrew told me nonchalantly. I could tell he was trying to hide something exciting from me, but he was doing a horrible job of it.

Before I could even respond he blurted out, "I got a fellowship!"

He was really excited, I was really excited, and Rachel was really excited even though she didn't understand why. She just knew that we were screaming and hugging and jumping up and down and she thought it was a lot of fun.

He was awarded a very competitive fellowship--which happens to be just the one we've been praying for since we were accepted three weeks ago.

The first thing I said when he told me was, "Al hamdu lilah!"

And I meant it, too. It is such a blessing to know that we won't have to pay for everything ourselves while we're over there. I've been trying to work out a budget to pay for tuition and housing and travel for those two years, but it was going to be nearly impossible to pay for everything without taking out substantial student loans. So we started praying for a fellowship.

It is such a relief that our prayers have been answered.

Andrew was awarded the International Graduate Fellowship, which normally would be a full-ride scholarship but because they've recently expanded their campus they had more applicants and thus the fellowship was a little more competitive this year. So instead we have a two thirds fellowship, which is still awesome!

What we think happened was that they gave the award to more people than usual and just trimmed down the amount allocated per person to be able to do so. We hear that AUC does that with a lot of their academic awards, but we don't mind! Two thirds is better than no thirds.

They will pay up to 6 credits of tuition for Andrew, for two years and one summer, which is a big stress-reliever. We also get two thirds of the living stipend which can be applied to rent, groceries, and transportation. Andrew's health insurance, student services, and student activities fees will also be waived.

We couldn't be happier. We're two thirds of the way to paying for Andrew's master's degree.

We don't have a Jack-in-the-Box

We are what you would call a young family. We're both in our early twenties. We've only been married for about two and a half years. We're barely getting out of school. We have pretend jobs that are only part time, pay minimally and have no fringe benefits whatsoever. We drive a 15 year-old car. We skimp on our grocery bills. We dress our daughter in hand-me-downs. And our furniture doesn't match.

It just follows suit that a lot of Rachel's favorite toys are secondhand from her cousins--most of her toys are, actually. Some of her favorite toys are made of things we would have otherwise thrown away--her juice can lid piggy bank, for example, or the shape sorter that I made out of an old diaper wipe box. And some of her toys don't exist at all.

One thing Rachel doesn't have is a jack-in-the-box and it would be a real shame if she grew up not knowing the simple childhood pleasure of having something spring up at you from no where, scaring you half to death. So we improvised.

I love that she loves this. Truly she thinks it's hilarious. Right after I finished filming she crawled right up onto Daddy's lap and gave him a great big kiss. Our favourite part of this clip is the second scare, right around 9-11 seconds. It's a classic Rachel face.

We chase each other around the house on our hands and knees scaring each other now. It's a great way to pass those last few minutes before Daddy comes home from school or work. It wears Rachel out, we giggle a lot, and we all end up happy.

An Ear Ache and a Visit from Friends

I knew something was wrong this morning when I put Rachel down on the floor after her first-thing-in-the-morning snuggles and she sat there, perfectly still, for about five minutes. Then she crawled listlessly to the shelf and, ignoring all of her toys, pulled a single volume off the book shelf and held it up to me.

I picked her up and read the story to her. When the story was over she didn't squirm to be put down or demand that I start from the beginning again--she just leaned back into me and cuddled.

She'd been feeling a little warm since yesterday afternoon, but nothing that really worried me. I first noticed she was hot when Uncle David took her out of her stroller in the library. I thought perhaps she was just warm because she had her pullover on top of a long sleeve shirt and had just been playing really hard. The fact that she was still warm when we got home, and then still when she woke up in the morning concerned me, but she'd been acting completely normal.

I thought, perhaps, that she was just teething because she constantly has her fingers or thumb in her mouth and she chomps away at it and has been the queen of drool lately...

But when she woke up from her morning nap, seriously like five minutes before Crys and her kids came over, she was burning up. She was so grumpy the whole time they were here--not herself at all, as anyone in our ward can attest. She spent most of her time on my lap, leaning back and resting her head. She hardly paid any attention to either of the kids and cried whenever the slightest thing happened. Completely out of character. It was nice to get to visit with Crystal--we haven't seen each other since Rachel was just a few weeks old!--I just wish Rachel had been feeling more like herself.

Nice hugs

Everyone pile on Crystal!

Playing with puzzles

After they left, we had a nap...from 11:30 until 3:00! It felt so nice because she had been up most of the night and, although she would stir around and whimper every few minutes, her nap was much needed by both of us.

She was still so hot and cranky when we woke up and was doing some really weird things. She'd pull herself up on something and then decide that she wanted to sit back down so she'd start to lower herself but then would stand back up...and then lower herself...and stand back up...and then lower herself...and then stand back up. She never lowered herself more than a couple of inches and was looking rather perplexed. After watching her do this for a few minutes I went over and grabbed her other hand, helping to steady her, and she was able to sit down.

That's what made me want to call the doctor's office. It was just so weird. Not only had I cuddled her more today than she's ever cuddled in her whole life...but her balance was off.

By the time I called the doctor he was gone for the day and wasn't planning on being back in the office until Monday, so when Andrew came home from work we went to InstaCare and waited and waited and waited.

When we finally got to see the doctor we learned, after much screaming on her part, that nothing too serious is going on. Rachel screamed while the nurse weighed her--she weighed in at only 17 lbs. 1 oz. on their digital scale--and tried to get her oxygen levels. She screamed while the nursed listened to her heartbeat and tried again to get her oxygen levels. She screamed while the nurse tried to take her temperature. Then the doctor came in and she screamed at him, too.

He told us she looks like she has an acute ear infection in her right ear. I had suspected such a thing, but it was nice to know which ear it was in since she was just acting like her whole head hurt, rubbing her hands all over her head. He said it will probably clear up on its own, but gave us a prescription to use in case she's still acting the same or worse in the next day or so.

He told us how much tylenol to give her, which was nice because the box, of course, just says to consult your physician if your child is under age 2. I don't know why they don't just tell you how much tylenol to give. I imagine if they had some sort of guidline available that it would decrease the number of over-dosings from parents who just guessed at how much medicine to give to their child when they couldn't get ahold of their physician, as we couldn't this afternoon. Anyway, now we know how much tylenol to give Rachel and soon after she had some her fever started to go down some.

The doctor also said that should sounded like she might have a little case of bronchiolitis, even though her oxygen levels were at 96%. It's probably left over from the runny nose that she's had for the past forever. I thought she was better because she hasn't had a runny nose for about a week, but apparently she's still suffering from that. He recommended a saline nasal spray to help loosen things up and help clear her passages. You'd better believe she loved having us use the bulb saringe on her nose after we'd filled it up with saline solution...since it takes both of us to blow her nose on an ordinary day.

I started putting the drops in her nose but kept missing and getting saline solution all over the place.

"You're supposed to put the nozzle in her nose," said Andrew.

"Oh? Ew! You do it!" I said. So we switched positions and I held her still while Andrew took over.

"How can you even tell if any is going in?" I asked.

"Gurgle, gurgle," choked Rachel.

"Like that," he said.

So now she's in bed. Hopefully she'll feeling better soon. It was kind of nice to have a cuddly baby for a day. One that didn't mess up the entire house and demand playtime and lunchtime and so forth. But it was also rather sad. I missed my little happy Rachel. Today's Rachel was sad and pathetic. I mean, I only had to pick up her books and toys once--after Crystal and her kids left and they did half the work, anyway--I haven't had that happen since before Rachel learned how to play.

(PS: I'm sorry Crys! I didn't think she was actually sick until after we woke up from our afternoon nap and she was acting really funny! I hope she didn't pass anything on to your kids!)

Stuck on Campus

Early, early this morning we all got up and ready for the day. I was so prepared and grabbed everything on our list: Rachel's passport application, her pictures, her birth certificate, our ID, diapers, extra outfits, lunch, toys, a book, the stroller, blankets, sweaters, baby wipes, Cheerios...

We packed everything in the car and struck out for the Utah County Clerk's Office to apply for Rachel's passport. Since we both had to be there, we had to do it before Andrew started class because the office closes before he's done for the day.

When we had almost reached the office, I realized that we had forgotten our checkbook, our only way of paying for her passport. When will the government realize that paperless transactions are better?

We didn't want to drive home so I phoned my mom's office to see if she had arrived on campus yet so that we could borrow a check from her. Luckily enough she had, so we went up to campus, which was a lot closer than driving all the way back home, got the check and headed back to the Clerk's Office.

Rachel has now officially applied for a passport. With that task done, we headed off to campus to spend the remainder of our day. While we waited for Andrew to get finished with his classes, Rachel and I had a blast.

We played in the fountain at the JFSB. Rachel loved the fountain. Even though it was really cold, she kept trying to climb in. She crawled almost the whole way around the fountain trying to get in, while I held onto her sweater, pulling her off her course and away from the water. Although she never got in the fountain she did get a whole lot of splashing in.

Popping bubbles

When her hands were beyond freezing and I didn't want her near the water anymore we went to play in the grass of the courtyard for a little bit. I was getting ready to take a picture of Rachel playing by a bench when all of a sudden a crazed maniac started rushing towards her.

Who is that man?!?

He scooped her up and twirled her around. Fortunately, I recognized who he was before I beamed him in the head with my umbrella stroller.

It's just daddy!

After daddy left us to rush off to class, Rachel and I took a long, meandering walk to the botany pond. She loved the ducks and wanted to get in and swim with them. Every time her little feet touched the ground she tried to crawl off to the pond. I tried not to let her down on her own very often because there were duck droppings everywhere, but she did get away from me once or twice--she's such a wiggle worm!

Watching the ducks

Watching the ducks with mommy

Rachel and the duck pond

These ducks weren't afraid of anything! They would come right up to us and quack for food. Unfortunately, we didn't have any so they spent most of their time flocking around another group of little kids, all of whom had a bag of bread. Sometimes, though the ducks just assumed we had food so they'd come and crowd around us. Rachel loved when they got in and out of the pond, flapping their wings and spraying everything with water.




When we were too cold to be outside any longer we went back up to the main campus to visit everyone we know at the library. Nani was busy with meetings, so we only got to visit her office briefly. Then we went to see if we could find Uncle David's office. We couldn't find it anywhere, so we started to go downstairs to visit Special Collections...and then we heard his voice so we followed it back up the ramp and found him talking with Garrett. They'd just gotten out of a meeting.

In Uncle David's new office

When we had visited all the people we could think of to visit it was just about time to go home! We went back to the JFSB and sat outside daddy's classroom for awhile. There's a really cool staircase in the JFSB and we played around that and then we strolled around and around and around the hallways.


It was a good, but very long, day! Mommy's feet are sore from all that walking!

Tragedy Strikes the Heiss Household

Rachel has become somewhat attached to her blankies. Lucky for us, there are two favorites--Andrew thinks having two favorites might be hereditary since he also had two favorite blankets.

Rachel and her blanket

Her attachment can be nice. Sometimes if she bonks her head and is upset, she'll crawl to her blankey to cuddle instead of to me. It all depends on who is closer. If I'm too far away, she'll choose the blanket over me. Her blankies help her fall asleep at night. She likes to cuddle them and stick her fingers and toes through them and use them as pillows and so forth.

Rachel and her blanket

When she wakes up, whether first thing in the morning or after a nap, she'll bring a blanket out of the crib with her. Usually she'll let go after she cuddles with mom or dad for a few minutes and fully wakes up. After she woke up from this morning's nap, however, she was not going to give up the blankey.

Rachel and her blanket

She had to go potty. I knew this because she hadn't gone all morning. We went to the bathroom and I tried to take the blankey away from her, but she wouldn't loosen her grip. I explained that I was going to take it away because she was going to use the potty and we don't use our blankies on the potty. Then I wrenched it out of her hand and threw it into the hall.

Rachel went balistic. She has this super cool temper-tantrum move where she completely relaxes her upper body making arms go limp and her head loll backwards, so you can hardly keep a grip on her, while somehow still managing to thrash her legs about. She was howling and thrashing and eventually I gave her back the blanket so that she would use the potty.

She held her blankey and sucked on it while she peed. She likes to watch the stream between her legs and so she moved the blankey so that she could see. I saw the wheels turning in that little head of hers but by the time I figured out what she was thinking it was too late. The blanket went into the potty between her legs.

Rachel and her blanket

I took it away and put it in the washing machine for safe-keeping, which was fine because she was over her post-nap blanket need by this point.

Fast forward a few hours to mid afternoon. Rachel, again, is acting like a little girl who needs to use the potty. She keeps standing up, sticking her little bum out and doing toots while looking at me with a panicked look on her face.

We have created somewhat of a monster. She doesn't always like to wear diapers. She doesn't like to go in them and she doesn't like to have them changed. She throws a fit everytime we try to change them: screaming, rolling around, delivering some well-aimed kicks, etc.

She also sometimes doesn't like to sit on the potty. I think she finds it boring. She'd much rather open up the bathroom cupboards and see what treasures they hold. Or tip over the garbage can. Or play with the toilet and/or toilet paper. Or try to climb into the tub.

This potty break was one of those potty breaks. It took me about five minutes just to get her diaper off. When I tried to sit her on the potty she went as stiff as a board and screamed while trying to get me to let go of her. I gave up on the potty and tried to put her diaper back on but she threw a fit and started bouncing around on her back.

I picked her up and tried to calm her down but she kept on screaming and thrashing around so I put her down in her crib, diaperless. I realize this was a bold move--I knew she had to go potty--but I wasn't really expecting her to do what she did.

The minute she was in her crib she stopped fussing, looked up at me, smiled, and peed...all over her other favorite blankey. I picked her up and moved her to the tub, figuring that she'd be safe in there now that she wasn't convulsing, and stripped her bed, throwing everything into the washer. I started the load and then filled up the bathtub and rinsed Rachel off before going on with the rest of our day, completely forgetting about the laundry.

Dinner was an interesting experience. Rachel must be having a willful day because she would not take a bite of food, or even open her mouth, unless she was putting the spoon in her mouth. She isn't very good at getting the spoon and food into her mouth so we worked out a system where I would put a spoonful of food into her mouth every time she put the spoon she was holding into her mouth. It got very messy. She smeared food all over her hair (another hereditary trait, I guess), her tummy, her legs, her arms. Pretty much everywhere.

I am feeding myself!

All gone!

We headed to the bathtub straight after dinner. Rachel maintained her self-sufficiency in the tub. She knocked all the shampoo bottles off the side (over and over again--I need to stop picking them up, I guess) and when she was done with that she tried to reach the ones on the shelf. When she realized those were too high she went for the soap dish, but it wasn't there because I had removed it during bath #1. So she moved on. She loves to try to pull the plug, but today she went even further. She tried to reach the tap.

All of this even before the tub was full. I guess all of her exersion made her thirsty because she decided to get herself a drink from the dripping faucet (we were using the shower head to fill up the tub because she likes the fountain that it makes).


She spent her time in the tub blowing bubbles--yes, our eight month old baby blows bubbles--and trying to stand up. I spent my time lathering her with as much lavender-scented soap as I could while trying to keep her sitting down. When I had had enough I took her out of the tub. Rachel did not approve.


I dried her off anyway and after much hassle got her diaper on. She was still screaming so we went to find her blankets so that we could cuddle. That's when I remembered about the laundry.

I switched the load up into the dryer and turned it on and then went into Rachel's room and grabbed my favorite blanket. It seemed to do the trick. She calmed down after I wrapped her up and held her. After her blanket fix, she got down and played for a little bit more, bedtime looming ever closer.


By the time I had Rachel all ready for bed I had completely forgotten about the laundry, again, so I was shocked when I walked into her room and found her crib barren of blankets. I put her down anyway, with my favorite blankey and went to check on the laundry.

She started screaming the minute I closed the door...and the laundry was still wet. I put it in for a little longer and listened to Rachel scream. After ten minutes or so, I went in to comfort her and gave her a different blanket--another crocheted one. I figured since her other blankies of choice where crocheted that this one might trick her. It didn't.

I nursed her while we waited for the laundry. It was still a little damp when we checked on it, but I gave her one of her blankies anyway...and she fell fast asleep. Hooray for bedtime!

Alphabet Tag

My friend, Heather, tagged me...

A: Attached or Single?

Attached, but my ear lobes are not.

B: Best Friend...
Andrew, for sure. And my mom. I have a lot of great friends in my ward right now, too!

C: Cake or Pie?
My cakes are much better than my pies. All my pies turn out looking gross and tasting only alright--other people's pies are yummy, though! But I do like cake...and pie...but if you really want to be my friend, bring me a nice white chocolate macadamia nut cookie.

D: Day of Choice...
Wednesday has traditionally been my favorite day of the week. It's halfway to the weekend! But I enjoy any day that Andrew can play with us.

E: Essential Items...
Aside from the textbook answers (food, shelter, clothing, etc) and the Sunday School answers (scriptures, family, the priesthood, etc), I would have to say: my glasses. Boy, do I hope we can afford Lasik surgery some day.

F: Favorite Colors...
That's a hard question. I love to dress Rachel in pink and yellow. I love to dress in blues and browns and greens. When I was supposed to be choosing colors for my wedding, I just couldn't do it so we had "pastels"--I fail to see why I should have to choose a favorite color now.

G: Gummy Bears or Worms?
Gummy Worms with the sour sugar stuff on them.

H: Hometown...
Ack! I was born in Raymond, Alberta. I grew up in Port Coquitlam, BC; High River, AB; and Orem, UT. I'm not sure which place I actually claim as my "hometown" since I've spent about equal amounts of time in each of them.

I: Favorite indulgence...
Naptime, handsdown.

J: January or July?
July. For now, since it is cold in January...at least here. When we are living in Cairo it might switch to be January when the temperature will drop to just below room temperature...you never know, I could get sick of the heat and decide that room temperature is better than a hundred degrees.

K: Kids?
One, which is plenty for now. Rachel is a handful, but we're planning on having more.

L: Life isn't complete without...
My Family

M: Marriage date?
December 16, 2005

N: Number of brothers and sisters...
2 brothers & 3 sisters

O: Oranges or Apples?
Right now, apples. They are just so expensive right now. We don't usually buy any produce that is more than 99 cents per pound so we've been eating oranges, oranges, and more oranges. I'm ready for an apple but they're too pricey for us. I like oranges, too...I just think an apples sounds tasty.

P: Phobia or fears?
That I will die and leave Andrew alone, or that he will die and leave me alone. We're planning on growing old together and then we'll have to go sky diving or, if the Iraq war is still going on (heaven forbid), maybe we'll just sign up as translators.

I'm also afraid of dogs and driving in cars and airplane rides and strangers.

Q: A good quote...
You must do the thing you think you cannot do. ~Elenor Roosevelt

R: Reasons to smile...
My family.

S: Superman or Wonder Woman?
I don't really know a lot about Wonder Woman. I think that when we played superheros as kids I was usually She-ra, which also starts with an es and is therefore a valid answer. But my real superheros of choice were always April O'Neal from teenage mutant ninja turtles or Cat Woman, depending on what we were playing.

T: Tag four people...
I leave this up to you. If you want to, then do it.

U: Unknown fact about me...
My life is pretty much an open book, I think. Oh, how about this: I was on a swim team for years, I did a little bit of synchro, I was a lifeguard and a swim instructor but...I don't like to have my face wet and am afraid of drowning.

I love swimming in the ocean, but I stay really close to the shore...I hate getting sprayed in the face with water...and I never, ever go bridge jumping.

My sister Abra, who also was a lifeguard, and I discussed this once and she said the more you know, the scarier it seems.

V: Favorite vegetable
...
Cucumbers, and peppers...pretty much anything fresh. Except beets--I definitely prefer those cooked. I don't like cooked cauliflower. Or brussle sprouts. Or ochra. Or turnip greens.

W: Worst habit...
Andrew says that I have no bad habits because I'm perfect. My family calls me "Mary Poppins" sometimes. But I do have bad habits...I leave my clothes on the floor. I pick at dry skin and scabs. I grind my teeth at night. And I leave clothes in the dryer until they are irrevocably wrinkled. Among other things.

X: X-Ray or ultrasound?

I've had one ultrasound and have had three incidences involving x-rays. I don't know how many x-rays were taken each time.

Y: Your favorite food...
I'm not sure this really counts as a "y" questions, but it's Mexican--we've already purchased plenty of Mexican seasonings to take to Egypt with us. But I like lots of other things, too. Mostly I like anything that I don't have to cook myself. I really need to become a better cook. Things are pretty sad when I don't even like to eat what I set on the table.

Z: Zodiac sign...
Cancer

Book Tag

Crys tagged me, but I think I'll do my tagging on One Book, Two Book. If you read this and want to do it too, though, feel free. Just grab the nearest book and turn to page 123 and tell us the fifth sentence on the page. I suppose I kind of cheated for this tag because the closest book to me was actually Quanti Colori--yet another Italian book, we're on a roll today--which only has about eight pages but here's mine, anyway:

Sempre ci pensavano, e chiedevo anche all'Emilia, ma non si poteva capire come fossero accoppiati.

That's from La luna e i falò and it means I always thought about it, and also asked Emilia, but one just couldn't understand how they got together.

I have no idea what context it is in since I haven't read the story. It's one of Andrew's Italian textbooks so it's probably some tragic romance novel, in true European fashion. Honestly, I am surprized at some of the stuff he tells me that come from his Italian textbooks...

Ihna Irhabiyeen in 134 days

Now that we've purchased our plane tickets, the fact that we're moving to Cairo is really hitting home.

Perhaps we're both a little too sure of ourselves, but neither one of us have ever applied to more than one school at a time. After high school, Andrew applied to BYU and got in. I applied to BYU and got in. Neither one of us had dreamed of not being accepted and we didn't waste our time applying to other schools.

We did the same thing with grad school, only this time we spent a little more time studying things out before we applied. We even almost applied to the University of Utah as well...but in the end only one application was completed and sent in. And then we held our breath.

I think we both knew that Andrew would get accepted. So it was more of a relief than a surprise when we finally got the acceptance letter. We could finally tell people what we would be doing post-graduation, we could finally start making official plans, we could finally start packing.

Rachel exhausted after helping me decide which books we should pack away

As soon as we found out we were accepted, Andrew made a wiki on Google Pages for us to keep track of all the details of our move. Most importantly he added a countdown. Since we didn't know when we would be leaving he arbitrarily chose August 15th as the ending date and we've been counting down from there.

We bought the tickets on Friday. The cheapest day I could find to fly was August 13th, so soon after purchasing them I went into the wiki and changed the countdown date to August 13th.

"There are 137 days until we leave," I announced at dinner (as of today it's only 134).

"Did you change the countdown?" Andrew asked.

"Mmhmmm," I grunted through a mouthful of pizza.

"What was it before?" he asked.

"139," I said after swallowing. Sometimes I remember not to talk with my mouth full.

"No, I mean, how many days?"

"139," I said again.

"Wait, how many days now?" he asked.

"137."

"And how many before?"

"139."

"Yeah, but how many days was I off?"

"What do you mean?

"Like, it's 137 days from the 13th, but what was my original guess?"

"Oh, Honey," I started, rolling my eyes.

"What?" He asked, innocently.

"You guessed the 15th," I sighed.

"Wow! I was only two days off!" He gloated...but I soon brought him back down to earth.

"You couldn't figure that out from the numbers 137 and 139?"

Apparently those are too big of numbers for him to work with.

I have to tease him while I can because pretty soon I'll be the one making all the embarrassing mistakes. You see, I don't speak Arabic very well at all. I know taxi Arabic, but most of it is memorized and isn't conversational. I could still tell a taxi driver where to drop me off in Amman, and I can ask where the restroom is but it usually comes out meaning "bird" instead of "bathroom," but I'm not too great at forming unique sentences just yet.

When we were in the car on Sunday Andrew was helping me understand how to use "we" a little bit better. For some reason the only verb I can say in "we" form is "to have" and usually I conjugate everything in "you" form. It's rather sad. In fact, I didn't even know how to say "we" before yesterday.

"احنا امريكيين" he prompted.

"Ihna amrikiyeen," I repeated back. That means "We're Americans."

"Oh, this is a good word to know as well," he said, "احنا ارهابيين"

"Ihna irhabiyeen," I parroted, "What does that mean?"

"It means, 'We are terrorists.'" He said matter-of-factly.

"Perhaps you shouldn't teach me to say that," I suggested.

"Oh, yeah," he agreed, "Just add a mish in there."

"Ihna mish irhabiyeen," I ammended.

We are not terrorists. Much better. I can only imagine the trouble we'd be in if on the airplane on our way to Cairo I turned to my Arabic-speaking neighbor to introduce us.

"Hi, my name is Nancy, this is my husband Andrew and our baby, Rachel. We're Americans...and terrorists. It's so nice to meet you."

Somehow I can't see that going over very well at all.