Home Sweet Home

I went to Belle's baby shower on Monday. She waited to have a friend shower until the baby was born so we knew what gender to buy for (they didn't find out the gender before the birth) and probably also so she could show off her new baby. She's still got some weight to take off but she's not as big as before, mainly because all the swelling has gone down since she's no longer retaining water. The shower was fun. All the pink and girly presents made me want a girl but I'm sure I wouldn't trade my little boy for all the girls in the world. But more than wanting a girl, the shower made me want a house.

The shower was at the house of one of Belle's friends that I had never met before. She lives over by Jordan Landing and her house is GORGEOUS! Not really the floorplan or anything so much as the way she had it decorated. It must have cost a fortune on top of the expense of the house itself just to furnish and decorate the place. I loved every table, every couch, every picture on the wall, every color of paint. I want a house and I want this girl to come over and decorate for me!

Hubby's been drawing floorplans for houses lately. I think he wants a house as much as I do but we'll have to wait until he's done with school to be able to afford it. I really like the floorplans he's drawn. He's having so much fun with it he's thought about changing his major to architecture but that'll just take longer and then we'll never get a house. Aphrodite has a plan for all of us to buy houses next to each other and share a backyard in 2010. They have a house right now but will want something bigger once they start having kids. So 2010 is the goal right now. Are we there yet...?

Kids Say the Darndest Things

My coworker's 5 year old son is enthralled with the fact that there is a baby inside my tummy. The other day he came up and patted my tummy and asked if the baby was still inside. I told him yes, but he'd be coming out soon. Then he asked if the baby would come out my mouth? I laughed and told him no, the baby doesn't come out my mouth. So then he asked where it does come out? Totally unprepared for this question my coworker and I exchange shocked looks! What do you tell a 5 year old? She just ignored the question and told him it was time to go home. Hubby says I should have told him they cut your tummy open and gut you like a fish. Because that won't give him nightmares...

Unbelievable

My friend Belle had a little baby girl this weekend who weighed somewhere around 6 lbs. She was going to be induced but ended up going into labor. Her labor only lasted 1 1/2 hours and she only had to push 7 times. She didn't have any morning sickness or complications through her entire pregnancy except that she did retain a lot of water. She did gain somewhere between 60-75 lbs though which made me feel a little better about what a horrible pregnancy I was having. Is it bad if I hope it takes her a really long time to get back to her skinny pre-pregnancy self? And that her baby doesn't sleep for the first year? Maybe then I won't hate her so much.

Tea Time

Yesterday was my mom's birthday (that would mean mine is tomorrow) and she decided she wanted to go try out this new tea room at Gardner Village called Protea Cottage. We'd been to afternoon tea once in British Columbia and it was so much fun that she's been wanting to do it again for years. Yesterday she got her chance. And it was every bit as fun as the first time. I would definitely recommend it for a girls afternoon out (guys are welcome too, my brother went with us, but most guys really aren't into tea parties).

When you first walk in, it's just a little tea shop where you can buy different teas (I'm pretty sure they make a lot of them there) and tea sets. They even had a golf mug I was tempted to buy for Hubby. If you've made a reservation for afternoon tea you get to sniff a bunch of jars and decide what kind of tea you want. And they have a lot. There are black teas, herbal teas, all kinds of teas. Our favorite turned out to be the Orange Grove Vanilla. Then you go upstairs for a lovely little tea party. Along with your tea you get scones with clotted cream, jam and lemon curd (my favorite part), fruit, little sandwiches, and an assortment of cakes and cookies. It's a little on the pricey side (about $13 per person) but definitely worth splurging on.

The woman who owns the shop is from South Africa and is the loveliest woman ever. She has the cutest accent and we chatted with her for quite a bit. She even recommended to me that I should start drinking red raspberry leaf tea to help with labor and recovery. Hubby isn't really into tea but he wants to go sometime because he lived in South Africa and misses their tea. So we'll have to go see if she carries the kind he misses (I'm pretty sure with all the teas she had there we can find what he's looking for). Along with afternoon tea, they also do tea parties for mothers (or grandmothers) and daughters and also for little girls where they get to play dress up and are given an etiquette lesson. I highly recommend checking this place out. I definitely think I'll be going back soon.

Independence Day

Last night, like most of you, we went to see fireworks. We hadn't really made plans for last night and weren't even sure we wanted to go anywhere. I didn't want to sit out in the heat for hours to wait for the festivities to begin (although with the way the weather turned out yesterday I think I would have preferred to be outside and get rained on to cool off). I didn't want to deal with crowds and crazies. So we decided to drive up behind the Capitol and see how the fireworks were from there. At first they were kind of lame. We could see a few pop up every once in awhile in the distance but it was nothing spectacular. But we were the only ones out there and it was kind of cool to see the whole valley, and the weather was perfect.

Then all of the sudden this totally annoying group of people came and sat right beside us. And wouldn't shut up. They were making the most stupid and ridiculous comments and I just wanted to yell at them to "shut up your damn head!" I guess the good thing about being right under the fireworks is that they're so loud you can't hear anybody talking. Not so in our case. They were a bunch of redneck country bumpkins and a couple of them sounded exactly like Napoleon Dynamite and his brother Kip. Not the things they were saying, just the way they talked. One guy wouldn't stop talking about how annoying all the trees are and that they're in the way and he wishes someone would cut them down. One lady, every time a new set of fireworks would start across the valley would say they were coming from Sugarhouse. They can't all be coming from Sugarhouse, lady.

I was about ready to leave because the lame fireworks we were watching weren't worth putting up with this annoying group, when all of the sudden the fireworks started getting really good. Rice-Eccles was the closest to us and we could see them the best. We could also see Sugarhouse (I don't know if the lady every quite figured out which ones really WERE Sugarhouse or not), Murray, Franklin Covey, and several other smaller displays across the valley and it turned out to be really cool. I hope everybody else had a good 4th as well.