Big

My big belly...

37.5 weeks

It's been awhile...

So, a lot has happened since we last posted...let me see if I can sum it up somehow:

• Robbie graduated with his Master's degree
• He also had a great audition with the Navy and is in the midst of the long, arduous process of getting a spot in one of their bands
• Oh, and probably the biggest news...we're going to have a baby!

In about three weeks!!

Yeah, I totally failed to share anything about that journey, didn't I? Well, I'll do my best to make up for it now.

At the end of June, on the day that my monthly visitor was supposed to arrive, Robbie and I were watching an episode of Monk and having an altogether relaxing Saturday afternoon. We hadn't been trying to get pregnant, but we hadn't really trying to NOT get pregnant either...so curiosity and impatience lead me to use the last pregnancy test we had laying in the bathroom cabinet and, lo and behold, two lines appeared!! I tried my hardest to keep a calm face when I walked back out to the living room (Robbie was still watching Monk). However, after sitting down next to him and being met with his inquisitive eyes, I grinned and showed him the stick.

"Really? REALLY??" was all he could say. He was shocked and happy and scared and bewildered...all wrapped into one.

Our facebook announcement

We found a midwife and set up a prenatal appointment and started a journey of monthly visits, plenty of morning sickness, and an otherwise uneventful first 20 weeks of pregnancy (though hearing the heartbeat for the first time at our 12 week appointment was quite a wonderful moment).

18 weeks

20 weeks

Then came time for our first ultrasound. It was amazing to see the tiny hands and spine and face, though seeing a picture on the screen still didn't feel quite like the baby was actually present in the room with us. As the technician moved the wand over my belly, examining the little stomach and bowels and other areas of the tiny person's body, she came to the legs and…TADA!…we could see immediately that it was a BOY! How wonderful it was to be able to say "he" and not "it" anymore! And it allowed us to finally decide on a name: Stephen Andrew Buss.

Creepy right eye, baby facing us

Left arm

View of boy parts and an upper leg from below...

Left foot

After several more uneventful weeks, during which time my morning sickness FINALLY started to subside, I got to finally feel his presence. Robbie was at a rehearsal, and I was sitting at home on the couch browsing the interwebs with my computer on my lap, when a very distinct "pop" against my belly made me jump. I looked down at my stomach and, a moment later, felt another one! Tiny little legs trying out their strength had moved forcefully enough to be felt! I almost started crying, I was so overwhelmed by joy at the sensation. My joy only increased when Robbie got home and, after several moments of his hand resting on my belly, was able to feel the tiny kicks as well! In the weeks that followed, the movements became ever more distinct and frequent.

Our Halloween costumes (23 weeks)

24.5 weeks

The next significant moment of pregnancy for me was not joyful or pleasant. After an initial glucose level test indicated that my blood sugar may be a bit high, I had to go in for a three hour test. After ten hours of not eating and barely drinking any water, I had my blood drawn, drank a tremendously disgusting bottle of fruit-punch-flavored liquid with 100 grams of sugar in it, and proceeded to wait around for three hours during which time my blood was drawn three more times. Between my empty stomach, getting blood drawn four times, and the sugar crash I experienced at the end of it all, I was a VERY cranky person. I have apologized to Robbie on several occasions after that day for how terribly I treated him. Despite my insanity, he treated me with the utmost care and fed me Olive Garden to return me to my previous, more stable state.

Since then, the pregnancy has been relatively dull and progressively less comfortable. My belly has continued to grow, increasing rapidly in girth during this last month or so. I am starting to feel a bit constrained in the ridiculously comfortable maternity jeans I picked up at Target at around month six. And Stephen's movements have ceased to be "cute" and have taken on a more violent nature (feet and knees visibly distorting my abdomen make for startling moments during the day). I have realized that most of what I say to our child is no longer sweet whispers but more along the lines of, "Stephen! Ow! Stop it!!" At least Robbie finds it amusing.

30 weeks

Maternity Apple shirt, featuring an Apple sticker from a coworker (33 weeks)

33.5 weeks

Now I have a little over three weeks till my due day and one week till my last day of work before maternity leave (assuming all the paperwork goes through like it should…). I am ready.

I am very ready.

I am ready to finally meet this kid. I am ready to be able to breathe again. And I am ready to be past the unknowns and fears of getting this kid out of me and into the world. We have a midwife and doula and birthing center all ready to go…we have a birth plan and a lot of reading under our belts…and we have a childbirth class this Saturday. We have done our best to be as informed as possible, but you never know exactly what it's going to be like until it happens. All you can do is prepare and pray.

Sooo…here's to the next few weeks and the surprises and new experiences they are sure to bring! I'll do my best to keep you all posted on our upcoming adventure :)

P.S. Baby hiccups are the strangest feeling in the world.

My New Computer

I finally have one! I finally have my own computer. My own NEW computer!

Kate wanted to surprise me. She tried, anyway. She came home one day a little giddier than usual. I had a musical show that night, and right before I left, she was jumping up and down repeating "PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!" wanting to tell me her secret. Mind you, her original plan was to keep her secret until the computer arrived a week later and just bring it home to me. She ended up only lasting a couple of hours. At any rate, she eventually told me that she had ordered me a new computer, the exact one I had been looking at! :-)

Here it is! It's a Mid 2012 11" MacBook Air. She decided to get the upgraded 2.0GHz processor, which I hadn't originally suggested to her, but she likes to spoil me! The other stats include 8GB of RAM and the 128GB solid-state hard drive.

This thing is amazing! It's so fast! The solid-state drive makes booting an application instantaneous. It's almost unreal how such a powerful and fast machine could be contained in such a small body. At 0.68" thick and only 2.65lbs, it's a very compact machine, which is perfect, because I will be traveling a fair bit for auditions and such (in the next few years) and having a powerful and portable machine is something that will suit me wonderfully.

So far I have had no issues with it (some people have been having constant crashes with this machine) and if I could say anything about it, I would just say under heavy processing, it gets very hot. I was running a program to monitor the different temps and one reading was saying the CPU was getting up to 93 degrees Celsius (200 degrees Fahrenheit)! Of course, this was during heaving video processing that I have since decided not to do on my computer anymore.

Other than that, this computer is fantastic! I have been an Apple fanboy ever since I got my Early 2008 MacBook Pro three years ago, and this new computer just further confirms that fact. I love the design, I love the utility and of course, I love the person who gave it to me! Thanks Kate! :-)

When Technology Dies

So...Robbie's computer died. More specifically, his logic board is on the fritz. That's this thing:

http://forums.macrumors.com/

We're debating whether to pay to replace it, or upgrade to a new machine. Since Robbie will likely be traveling a fair amount for auditions and such, he could greatly benefit from something more portable than a 15" MacBook Pro. We've got our eye on this guy (the 11" model on the left):

http://www.apple.com/macbookair/

Robbie is quite thrilled with the possibility of having a newer/faster/better computer than I do. And, while I'm slightly jealous of how thin and light his computer would be, I'm overjoyed by the prospect of him no longer borrowing mine. We'll keep you updated on what we decide to do!

Jemez Falls Hike

Today, after sleeping in till 10AM, we decided to go on an impromptu hike to Jemez Falls. Well, actually, a DRIVE to the trailhead and THEN a hike. And we took pictures.

Robbie offered to take a picture of some AMAZING red rocks at a gas station (a.k.a. bathroom stop) at Jemez Pueblo:

Robbie's idea of a good picture

I was determined to get a better picture on the way back.

We arrived at the trailhead and, after a minute or two of discussion as to which path was actually the trail, decided on this one (which ended up NOT being the main trail and instead being very steep at one point):

Me, equipped for a more strenuous hike than we ended up encountering

Robbie, conquering a tree

After a very short jaunt, we reached a waterfall:

Water falling

More water

Taking a picture of water

After wandering around a bit at the base of the tiny fall, among the children splashing and college-aged girls "sunbathing" in bikinis, we hiked up the river a bit, scooted down a steep embankment, and discovered a peaceful creek at the top of the falls:

No bikinis

Just water, rocks, and trees

I took off my shoes, slipped on some old ones, and walked around in the water a bit:

Action shot

And took some more pictures:

So green!

Robbie, who did not bring old shoes and was unwilling to get his hiking ones wet, stayed in the shallow water:

"Very nice. For the next one, give me a normal smile."

"I thought you said 'an enormous smile.'"

"THERE we go."

Determined to get Robbie into the water, I slipped off my old shoes and tested the creek bed to see how hostile it was to bare feet. It was mostly smooth! So we wandered barefoot up the creek for a bit:

Happy feet

More water and green stuff

Finally, we wandered back, put on our hiking shoes, and walked along the shore downstream a bit until we came to a HUGE drop with quite a view:

View

We had found another fall, and bigger ones at that:

Inches from death

I climbed down to the top of the bigger falls to get some more pictures and caught Robbie pretending to be an explorer:

Epic

Peaceful waters before the plunge

On our drive back toward Albuquerque, we came across another waterfall:

Putrid-smelling yet beautiful

You can see here where the water USED to run over (and into) the rocks, until it eventually cut a hole through and started flowing as seen in the picture above:

Water-carved caverns in the rocks

We took more pictures:

Him

Her

And then one of the caverns ate me:

AHHHH!

After noticing that there was a group of college-aged kids in swimsuits having a private pow-wow in the back corner of my cavern (awkward), we made our way around and behind the rocks and met the source of the waterfall:

Less putrid-smelling and more beautiful

Ditto

I'm running out of captions

We kept driving and stopped again at Jemez Pueblo for some better pictures of the red rocks:

Photo credit: Kate

Photo credit: Kate

Photo credit: Kate

After that, we finally went home, made some tacos, and watched Return of the Jedi.

It was a good day.

Most eventful month of my life so far

In the past month (end of May/beginning of June), I moved all my stuff to another state, cleaned a house for two days, back to back, planned/emailed/made phone calls almost constantly, and got married.

And the pace of things changed quite a bit after that.

Now I'm lounging around in a little cottage in Santa Barbara, spending some quality time with my husband (still weird to say that), updating this blog because I now have the time to do so. So far we've walked along the beach, gone to Six Flags: Magic Mountain, eaten whatever we felt like, spent an entire afternoon in the quaint little town of Solvang, and slept in just as late as our bodies would let us (which, for me, is about 10AM). It's been glorious.

But I'm ready to go home. And I'm even MORE ready to go to my NEW home. All my stuff is in boxes in the front room, and I can't wait to unpack it and give it a place to belong. I am excited to get back to my own bed...well, now it's OUR bed, but you get the idea. Vacationing is fun, but it doesn't feel like married life is REAL yet. Perhaps it will finally sink in once we're there together going about normal life...work, buying groceries, going to church, etc.

All that is still a couple days away. First, we're going back to Phoenix tomorrow, where I will recant all the negative things I've said about Santa Barbara's weather (cold/humid). We'll finally get to Albuquerque on Tuesday, where we'll have several days before I start work on Friday. Man, all this life stuff is coming up fast.

I changed my mind. I want to continue lounging around here in Santa Barbara.

How I'm sure I appear to others...

I ran across this picture today. I'm afraid to admit that, yes, it's probably true for me...

The end is finally here!!!

So it's the end of the semester. I've been done with school for awhile, but that hasn't meant that I've been free from its effects. All of my roommates have been hard at work with projects and finals, hurried and stressed and stretched a bit thin, and my love has been busy attending to his own academic responsibilities, not as free to talk with me as earlier in the semester. BUT THE END IS FINALLY HERE!!!

I am thrilled that everyone now gets to sink into the bliss that is summer in Arizona (yes, there's a little sarcasm there), but I am most excited because tomorrow I get to see Robbie! He's driving into town with his friend, Rob, to go to a concert and then they are both coming to my graduation the next morning (Rob is SUCH a good friend to sit through a two hour graduation ceremony for me). Then they are both hitting the road back to Albuquerque again. It'll be a brief encounter, a sip of water on a scorching summer day. But the all-to-soon-again absence will be quite bearable, because just five days later, Robbie will be coming home for good.

Now wait, you may say, doesn't he have another year of school in Albuquerque? How is he coming home for good? Well, as he told me the other day, home isn't here in Arizona; home is simply wherever I am *heart bursts with mushy affection* It is less than a week until we will be together for good. I can't believe it!! It's been a long ten months of long-distance relationship, of visits and breaks and difficult goodbyes. No more!

So, while I may not be rejoicing in the streets or on facebook that finals are FINALLY over, I am ecstatic beyond belief that this chapter in our lives is AT LAST coming to a close and that the next chapter of life together (marriage!) can begin.

Last times...

We're getting to a point in the collection of countdowns where we are experiencing a series of "last times." I am boarding a plane to head home after visiting Robbie for the last time. Unless my ears become suddenly overwhelmingly wax-ridden, I bought Q-Tips as a single gal for the last time two weeks ago. In a few hours, I will have addressed a wedding invitation for the last time. And this past week was the last time I'll be stuck in Albuquerque without a car. I'm sure I could think of others, but you get the idea.

Robbie, too, has joyfully spoken of some last times in his life as well: last time the quintet performs this semester, last time he has to do a homework assignment in his class, last time he has to spend time with me at "our" apartment before it's officially ours, and last time we have to say goodbye before being together for the forseeable "forever" of the future.

I really like that last one.

A brief thought

Random movie nights with a small group of friends is something I will miss when I move away. The laughter, the shoulder rubs (and hand rubs and arm rubs and head rubs and resulting crazy hair), the oddball snacks, and the comfortable atmosphere are all absolutely amazing. I have been truly blessed during these college years. And even though I will be leaving soon, moving away from my family for the first time and from my friends for the first time in almost 16 years, I will treasure these simple memories and truly savor keeping in touch with these wonderful people through facebook and Skype. And hopefully, through this blog as well.

So . . . Max, Bry, Andy, and David, thank you for a wonderful, spontaneous evening :)

 P.S. If any of you read this and have a great picture from the evening, send it to me and I will add it to this post ;)