Hurray!

So, after a month of wait, I finally found out my score from the third exam... and I PASSED! It's the one that stopped working in the middle of it, so I am extra excited! On top of that, it was perfect; just right amount to pass. Hey, pass is a pass, right? I will find out about the one I took on Monday in a month, and if I pass that one too, I only have to re-take one section after our baby comes :-)

Studying week

This past week was a hard week for me. I procrastinated studying so I was stuck with too much to learn and too little time to study. I worked 55+ hrs and studied 2-3 hrs every night. Good thing it'll be over tomorrow! Jeff started working on his exam too this week, and even our dog, Oreo, turned into a studious one...

With me working longer hours and then studying, Jeff has been working on our basement too (I think he'd rather work on the basement than studying...). The bedroom's frame is done, common area's wiring is done (I think), and raising floor is almost done. He bought some drywall and started putting them up in the closet. Too bad I can't help him holding them up while he screw them in. There are lots that need to be done before our baby comes, and I can not be much of a help :-( It is nice to have friends and family that we can count on.

My uncle in Japan is having a surgery this week. The end of last year we found out that he had a a bladder cancer. So this week the doctor will remove his bladder and other cancerous areas (apparently there is some umbilical cord-related thing that most people don't have that he has, that was the cause of this cancer), and he will get a little pouch hanging out that'll work as a bladder (is my understanding, at least). My mom and grandparents told me that it's not life threatening surgery, but they sometimes don't tell me everything, or at least try to be more optimistic around me, so I really don't know how things are over there. But please keep him and my aunt in your prayer, as well as my grandparents and my mom.

Surf and turf dinner on Valentine's

Happy Valentine's! We just celebrated our 8th valentine's together. After work today I went grocery shopping and bought lobster tails and steaks. So we had "surf and turf" dinner :-) It was my first time cooking lobster tails, but it turned out good... I don't know how you can mess it up, if it's just putting them in a boiling water with some seasoning :-) And I also made Jeff's favorite mashed potatoes (with cream cheese and sour cream!) and asparagus. We will have ice cream and strawberries later.

We had a nice time at Josh and Vicky's last night with our high school friends. We had our annual fondue party. I don't know exactly when we usually have them, but I'm sure it's about "annual" by now. Too bad Jeff forgot to take camera. We had one side of a table with married couples and the other side with Kevin, Kyle and Seth together (we missed you, Sarah!). By the end of the oil fondue, the men's side started the "men's cooking". They put mushrooms, onions, chicken, pork and shrimp all in the batter and pour it in the oil. They were too lazy to use forks and wait for it to cook... it turned out alright, but sure was messy!

I had my doctor's visit on Thursday. Everything is going well. I am 26 weeks now. At the small group that evening, everyone was trying to get the baby's name out of Jeff... good luck with that ;-) I think he's pretty set on not telling people the name of our baby until he's born. And he can keep poker face. I'm sure people will start trying on me now, since I just can't keep straight face! At work my friend, Kate, is starting to plan a baby shower for me (combined with two other pregnant ladies). I am looking forward to it. I can't believe it's almost time for showers! I hope the rest of the pregnancy goes as quick as it has been.

It's Monday already

Wow, it's already been a week since my last post. Time flies when you are busy. I like being in public accounting for this reason. Winter goes by so fast and it's spring in no time! Actually it hasn't been too busy at work yet. It's been nice to be home by 7:30 every day so I have some time to study for my next exam.

Our baby's movement has been more noticeable. It's been fun to feel him kick, and I feel like he responds to what's going on outside by kicking. For example, when Oreo barks, he usually kicks. When I eat chocolate, he kicks (that may be because of high in sugar and caffeine). He also kicks in the middle of a night when he is not comfortable when I finally found a comfortable position to sleep. Yesterday we stopped by at Mel & Lorna's place and tried to hear his heart beat with stethescope. We have been trying this for a while, but we still can't find the heart beat. I guess we don't know what we are trying to listen to. But when Jeff was trying our little guy kicked, and Jeff was able to hear that. Jeff described the sound as "it's like tapping on the stethescope".

My appetite has increased significantly in the past few days. I feel like I can eat 5 big meals a day and am always hungry. I need to start watching what I eat, if I have to eat that much!

Fun and relaxing weekend

Since I am taking another exam at the end of February, my intent was to start studying right after this past exam... but instead, I took this week off. It was nice to be able to do whatever I wanted to do.

On Friday, we went to Kevin's house and celebrated his 27th birthday and played some Rock Band.

I went into work for a few hours on Saturday, and Jeff and I went to Mishawaka. We went to kids' second-hand store there that one of my co-worker told me about. It was packed full of moms, dads, and tons of kids! It was nice to know that we had an option to buy used items at a decent price. We went to Papa Vino's for a dinner, which is my favorite Italian around here, and then to BabiesRus. That store is a lot of fun to walk around. We bought two potential "going home outfits" there. I don't know what qualifies as "going home outfits", so we just picked some sleepers that we thought were cute.

We played hookie from church on Sunday since I haven't been sleeping well. It's a combination of tossing and turning, and something that I may now think is a heartburn. But I hadn't been sleeping much at night, so we decided to take it easy. We watched the Australian Open Men's Final that we had taped from the night before (or morening, since it started at 3am). It was amazing. I really like both Federer and Nadal, so it was hard to cheer at times. Since Sarah hasn't finished watching the game, I should not say more about it :-)

Then Superbowl... yeah... It's just not as much fun when two teams that you don't care as much are playing. I loved it two years ago. But I thought there were some good commercials last night, and it is always fun to hang out with our friends from high school. I was thinking last night looking around the room "wow, we have been hanging out almost 10 years together..." Who knew we would still be friends! It is exciting to think that our son can get to know them as aunts and uncles.