So, I guess there is this phenomenon in the blog world of "tagging" people which means they are supposed to write specifically about something. Recently an old roommate tagged me to write 6 things about myself and a while ago an old high school best bud tagged me to write 5 things I love about where I live...so here I go...in the spirit if Thanksgiving and blessing counting I think now is a good time to reflect. I must say, I have never posted a non-Louisa centered entry so this will probably be a bit tentative. First tags first....
5 things I love about where I live.....
1. The fact that my daughter could play in the splash pad outside our Barnes and Noble, get soaking wet and not even be cold despite it being the beginning of November (this was last Saturday). This might seem Louisa centered but what I mean is that with a busy toddler I am grateful that the weather is so great for being outside right now. Sure it could be cooler, what with the 36 cm fundus, but like I said...counting my blessings....
2. Living so close to where Rhett works, studies and devotes many, many extra hours of each day to studying fluorescent proteins and bacteria and alternative energy sources etc...we can easily drop by each day for his lunch break (so Louisa won't forget who her father is since he often leaves before she is awake and often gets home after she goes to bed). Another plus, he can ride his bike to work each day saving gas, the atmosphere, car mileage, etc...and gets a little exercise and fresh air and I don't have to worry about him falling asleep during a long commute since he often has to make late trips to his laboratory. Wow - there really are a lot of benefits to living where we do.
3. I do also love our ward - it is a delightful mix with lots of older retired and very wise couples, widows and widowers, and lots of younger student couples (like we were 3.75 years ago) and inbetween are a handful of down to earth families, some big and some small and new like us. It makes for a very diverse group. I was at a young women's activity tonight and as the group sang their musical number I realized I have been in my calling with the beehives long enough to have taught on Sunday or instructed on Wednesday regularly each one of the current girls. Whoa!
4. Well, we are expecting a little boy sometime in the middle of December. The other night my dad called to say that if I go into labor in the middle of the night, he and/or my mom will meet us at the hospital and take Louisa home with them. And after the baby comes, Rhett's mom lives just a mile or two from the hospital and can help Rhett juggle watching Louisa and bringing her to visit etc...In other words, we are really lucky to live close enough to family to help out with these kind of things. It is also great to have so many cousins around.
5. And the fifth thing I love about where we live is our little condo. I stumbled across the nieghborhood while dating Rhett. We were both students when we got engaged and we were just set on living in this neighborhood. After some crazy and absolutely serendipitous events we managed to close on it the day of our wedding. We spent the next few months painting and trimming practically every inch of the place (some inches in the bathroom got painted 5 times due to tricky lighting that really threw us off). We've been here ever since and are about to bring our second child home here. We often joke how we wish we could secretly dig a basement to add rooms and live here longer. We also like to plan to someday come back and live here when we are very old and have it be our last house as well as our first.
Anyways, not to get too sentimental on everyone....but there you have it....5 things I love about where I live. The other tag was to write 6 things about myself....I am sure there are 6 things about me that leaked out in the gratitude tag...but I will play fair and list six specific things about me.
1. I love food - love to eat it, love to cook it etc... I would love to go to culinary school for the fun of it and often think it would be fun to start a restaurant.
2. I speak 2 1/2 languages - English of course, and Spanish and Portuguese which are so similar that I don't count them as 2 languages but just 1 1/2 - especially since as time goes by I sometimes am not sure which I end up speaking in.
3. I have freckles - most people don't notice them but I have lots of them.
4. I love to travel and would love to backpack Europe, visit the Philippines, and think it would be cool to live somewhere foreign with our kids.
5. I am a Republican and listen to conservative talk radio.
6. I also listen to ESPN radio during basketball season - in fact I like to listen to basketball games on the radio as much as watch one on TV.
Also, if you read this, you are tagged.
The month of November started off on a festive note as we celebrated my younger brother's wedding. Congratulations Adam and Andrea and welcome to the family! Here we are at the reception that evening. This picture is a little blurry but it will have to do since Louisa is cooperating and looking at the camera. I have to kind of laugh at this photo because my belly doesn't even fit in the picture - that is how big it is getting!
Ok, if you haven't guessed - we are Charlotte's Web (one of Louisa's favorite cartoons as she recently discovered and is infatuated with TV). Louisa is Charlotte the Spider, Rhett is Wilbur the Pig, and I am Templeton the Rat. We decided I had the belly to pull off the fat rat look. After posting this picture I realize that it is one of the only recent family photos I have put up in a long time so I have resolved to try and take a decent family picture at my younger brother's upcoming wedding.
Here are Rhett and Louisa, I mean Wilbur and Charlotte, receiving their prize from Grammy Corrine for being the champs of musical chairs. I was the runner-up, a position I secured only after a battle with Mr. Incredible (my brother-in-law) who was knocked right off of the chair by my rat's...anyways you get the idea. Louisa loved her little plush ghost prize. 
Overall, we had a great time at the annual Halloween party. We stayed up way too late and ate way too much. A few days later we had the traditional Trunk-or-Treat party with our ward. 
Louisa is making the rounds. She did say trick-or-treat for me during the day but was much too distracted by what was going on at all of the cars to say it to anyone - not that it mattered - they all loaded her up with goodies anyways and it didn't take her long to get going on enjoying the sugary goodness that makes having to wear a leotard and four extra arms/legs worth it.
Once we got home we let Louisa run around for awhile to wear off some of the sugar. Eventaully she grabbed a blanket and laid down right on the floor, signaling she was ready to call it a night!
