It's true . . .

Ok, yes, we're going to have a baby and we're very excited :) I am due April 28th which puts me at about 13 weeks. I haven't been too sick most of the time, but I have definitely had a few bad days. Tom was very kind one day last week to pick me up from work because I was afraid I was going to throw up on the bus. We are definitely planning on finding out the sex of the baby and we should find out sometime in December.

We spent last night in Bakersfield visiting Tom's parents. Driving back this morning we saw huge clouds of smoke coming up from the Malibu fire and as we were passing by a fire was starting up right next to the freeway. I took a few pictures with my cell phone. By the time we were approaching LA the sky was filled with smoke. It was really eerie.

Since I have been neglecting the blog, here are a couple of catch-up things.

Here is a very forlorn looking photo of Tom in front of his office when he was working at Irell over the summer (sorry, it was taken with my cell phone). He had his own little name plate and everything.

Speaking of law firms, over the last couple weeks we have gone to receptions for both Irell and Hogan. This was the first time I met anyone from Hogan and I was really impressed with how nice everyone was. The Irell reception was really great because we got to see several of the people that Tom got to work with over the summer. It was wonderful to see how well Tom had gotten to know so many people and how well he fit in with everyone. Anyway, here's a picture from our little party favor from the Hogan reception.

coming april 2008. . .

Hurray for Tom

We are very excited beecause yesterday Tom accepted a job for next summer. The firm is called Hogan & Hartson and it is actually right across the street from the firm he worked at last summer. To read more about the firm/summer program, click here or here.

I haven't posted in a while because, well, there hasn't really been anything to post. I go to work every day, Tom goes to school every day, and we spend the weekend trying to recover from work and school. Usually the most interesting part of the day is the bus ride to and from UCLA, but that's the bad kind of interesting. Since I don't have anything interesting to report, I guess I'll just ramble on about something for a little bit so feel free to quit reading at this point.

So recently Tom and I reached our 18 month anniversary and I have been thinking about all of the random events that led to us meeting. During the spring term of 2005 I went on a study abroad to Europe. I intended to return to Provo afterward to take summer term classes, but I hadn't arranged housing for when I got back. I spent some time looking up some open contracts online and, since my sister Kara was living in Provo at the time and she owed me money, I sent her around to check out the places and put down a deposit. She chose this little house that was pretty close to campus.

Because I didn't know anyone in the ward, I decided that for summer term I would go up to Salt Lake every weekend and go to my parent's ward. By the time fall semester came around, I decided I should probably go to my student ward. At this point I had a full blown case of mono and was very tired all of the time. I got ready for church, sat down on my couch, and proceeded to sleep through relief society and Sunday school. When I woke up I still had time for sacrament meeting, so I walked up to campus and up to the second floor of the MARB. Unfortunately, I had no idea which room our sacrament meeting was in, but there were these two guys standing outside one of the doors so I asked them which ward was in the room behind them and what time sacrament meeting started. The guys were Tom and his roommate Deuce and they were late for church because they had stayed home with their sick roommate, so we snuck into the back of sacrament meeting and sat together.

This was the week before general conference, so I knew that I wouldn't see Tom again for a couple weeks. I went home and asked my roommates about him, and waited patiently the two weeks until I would see him again. We sat together at church again that week and we have been together ever since.

Sorry, that was kind of long, but I was just thinking that if my sister hadn't chosen that house for me or we hadn't both been late for church that week, I might not be sitting here typing this up when I'm supposed to be working :)

time for an update

Well, I guess it's time for an update, although there's not really much to update about. Tom has started back at school, here's a picture of him on his first day:
So far his classes are ok, but this week has been difficult because he's in the middle of interviews for next summer. So far he has interviewed at 6 firms and he has one more interview tomorrow (all of the firms are in LA). Last night he didn't get home until 11pm because he went to dinner with one of the firms. He was exhausted, but hopefully the dinner invitation was a good sign.

We are loving our new apartment, but we haven't really done any decorating. The walls are completely blank, but we just keep saying to each other how much we like being here. We have been particularly thankful for our air conditioning for this last week because it has been ridiculously hot outside (well, ridiculously hot for LA). I can't believe we survived our old place with no AC in August.

The bus is getting us to and from school, but it's amazing how different the bus can be from one day to the next. I took the bus regularly in college, but the bus in LA is a totally different story. On rare occasion there are seats available, but usually the bus is so crowded that you can hardly move and you end up standing next to someone who smells horrible and then you have to fight your way through the crowd to get to the exit. That is probably because I take the bus at two of the busiest time of the day (8am and 5pm), but we are grateful that we don't have to drive and park in Westwood. We even get to take the bus together sometimes which makes it much more bearable.

In other news. . . HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY KARA :) My sister turned 21 yesterday. Wow, I can't believe she's 21. Also, my stepbrother got his mission call to Philadelphia and he's going to be leaving in December, Congratulations Tyson. And my two youngest sister (who we refer to as the "little girls" in my family) started back to school recently and they're both in middle school, Carly is in 8th grade and Kelly is in 7th grade. That's crazy. I feel really old.

I will leave you with this lovely image. The other day Tom walked in and sat on the couch next to me. He pulled up the leg of his shorts to reveal this. He must have been really bored.

Seven Things I Have Observed About Erica

1. Erica does not like to have her belly button poked or in any way touched. Seriously. I think her belly button is more sensitive than most people's fingertips, except it only registers one sensation: pain. If my goal is ever to make Erica angry, I know just what button to press.

2. Erica lived her high school years at the base of one of the Cottonwood Canyons in Salt Lake City, mere minutes away from some of the greatest skiing on all of planet Earth, but I think she only went one time.

3. Number 2 was in part due to the fact that she broke her ankle right around the time she moved to Utah. Thanks to some incredibly incompetent rural Texas doctors, who told her it wasn't broken and to just walk it off (advice which necessitated later surgery and pins in her ankle), we are simply grateful she can use that foot. She is now very careful and resists the urge to jump over luggage.

4. Erica loves chocolate. A lot. This could have something do with the fact that she is part American Indian (1/16 I believe). Check out her baby photos for any necessary proof of that lineage. As a baby I think she looked like an Eskimo. A very cute one. Erica is also a descendant of Parley P. Pratt.

5. Erica is the only person I have met who, after being exposed to me for longer than a few weeks, can stand to be in my presence.

6. Erica is very self conscious of her singing, but I think she has a beautiful voice.

7. Erica suffers from what I like to call "worry all the time syndrome" or "WATTS." I happen to suffer from "dimentia of obvious facts ultra syndrome" also known as "DOOFUS." She helps me get to the dentist regularly, ensures we eat healthy and delicious food, reminds me to bathe at somewhat regular intervals, and so on. In turn, I assure her that we will both be alive tomorrow, one day we won't have crushing student loan debt, and that the sky, is in fact, not falling. To sum up, I keep her heart rate below 1,000 and Erica keeps my heart beating (thanks hon).

questions from betsey

Our friends Betsey and Richard posted seven interesting things about each other which I thought was so fascinating that I've decided to do the same thing. I am going to post 7 interesting things about Tom and then (hopefully) Tom will at some point post 7 interesting things about me (he's already asleep).

1. Tom really likes the eggs in the egg carton to be symmetrical. If the egg carton is full and he takes two eggs out, he will take one from each side so that the remaining eggs are symmetrical.

2. One of Tom's favorite foods is a vegetarian Chipotle burrito with black beans and corn salsa. He was (almost) always eat one if it is offered to him.

3. Tom needs A LOT of sleep. I usually feel fine with six or seven hours of sleep, but Tom isn't really happy unless he gets at least nine hours. And he does not like to be woken up.

4. Tom once got a fortune cookie that said "you would make a good lawyer." He carries the fortune around in his wallet.

5. Tom was born in Texas, then lived in Oklahoma before moving to California. When he lived in Oklahoma he fell out of the car while his mom was driving down the road. Somehow he survived.

6. After Tom got home from his mission he went on a lot of first dates, but I was the only second date he went on.

7. Tom has cankles. Seriously, he has the biggest, cutest ankles I've ever seen.

back to school

That's right, on Monday Tom will be back to school. Today was his last day at Irell and I have to admit, I was really sad. And not just because it meant saying goodbye to our temporary dual income. We really met some fantastic people throughout the summer and I am going to miss seeing them all of the time. Since we are near the firm there we will (hopefully) still be going to an occasional dinner with some associates. I am very proud of Tom because he has been asked to come back for a couple weeks next summer which means there is a good chance that he will get a job offer! When we were deciding where Tom should go to law school, I would never guessed how much choosing UCLA would change our lives. We love living in LA, we have an amazing ward, and Tom has been able to participate in this fantastic program. I feel so blessed.

Since we had been busy moving and then we were both sick for several days, we haven't been going to many dinners lately. Let's see. . . in the last few weeks we have tried out Fogo de Chao, Mastro's, Jar, Craft, and Lucques. We also had a couple of kind-of-celebrity-sitings; we saw Eddie Izzard at Jar and Gail Simmons at Craft. Everything was pretty good, except Craft had terrible service (they have only been open for a couple weeks) but they did give us these little blueberry corn muffins to take home with us.

Anyway, we are pretty much settled into our new place and we love it. I'll try to put up pictures soon, once our walls look a little less bare :)

If anyone is interested. . .

My mom (who lives in the Salt Lake City area) is selling purebred lhasa apso puppies. They are soooo cute and they are great dogs (and they lhasas don't shed). Give me a call or leave a comment if you're interested 310-691-9966

Hmmm

It looks like I slept through my first earthquake.

walking

I found this link on David's blog (he is in my ward and I read and enjoy his blog even though I don't think he knows who I am so I hope he doesn't mind). I LOVE walking so I thought it was really interesting. Basically, it uses Google maps to give you a score to rate how walkable your community is. Here are the scores for the communities in which Tom or I have lived:

Los Angeles (90034): 68

suburban Salt Lake City (84121): 26

Bakersfield, CA (93309): 52

London (South Kensington, I know I didn't live there for very long, but it was a great place for walking): 87

Pittsburg, Texas (75686): 28

August . . . already?

It has been a little while since I have really posted. Moving has taken up most of our spare time, but our keys to the old apartment have been turned in and today we finished unpacking all of our boxes. We have moved and we are very happy. There are pros and cons to the new apartment (mostly pros) here are a few of the wonderful things about the new place:

• MORE ROOM. The new apartment has ~900 square feet compared to the ~425 square feet in the old place.
  
• Air conditioning. Our old apartment had no air conditioning and it was always about 10-20 degrees warmer than the outside temperature. It was an oven.
  
• We are closer to the rest of the ward. Even though we have been in the ward for about a year, we don't know that many people. We have probably met more people in the last two weeks than we have met in the last year.
• We get cell phone reception in our apartment. All five bars.
• We get to park in a garage. Though the garage is tiny and our car barely fits, it is protected from the elements. At our old apartment the car was under a tree that created a sticky coating all over the car.
  
• Paying rent online with a credit card = credit card points
• We have a larger oven. Our old place couldn't even hold a standard-size cookie sheet.
• Our internet, cable, and gas are all paid for.

As I write this something is happening that could not have happened in our old apartment: I am sitting in the living room on the couch typing this and watching TV while Tom is playing video games and neither of us have to wear headphones :) Tom is in the next room so I can listen to the TV and he can have volume on his video game at the SAME TIME.

Anyway, enough about the new apartment. I will try to post pictures tomorrow if I remember/have enough energy. Tom posted a little about our trip to Newport Beach, but here are a few more pictures (sorry I didn't take time to remove the red-eye):
The firm sponsored a night at a hotel in Newport Beach so that the summer associates could see the firm's Newport Beach office. Tom went up a night early so that he could participate in a mock trial activity and I joined him on Friday. Newport is beautiful and we enjoyed a little walking around followed by a dinner and activities like a poker tournament, bull riding, and gambling with fake money. We had a very enjoyable time, even though we were both pretty terrible at poker and we didn't win anything in the raffle.

Since then we have been able to show off our new apartment to a few visitors. Last week Tom's aunt Judy, cousins Rachael and Andrew, and Rachael's daughter Savannah visited our new place. This was the first time I had the opportunity to meet Rachael and Savannah and they are fantastic just like the rest of Tom's family. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner and got to do some catch up. Rachael even brought us a bottle of Ice Cucumber Pepsi from Japan (where she lives). I was actually surprised that I liked it quite a bit; I wouldn't say that it tasted good, but it was very refreshing. Thanks Rachael :)

On Friday we went to Chipotle with Andrew and one of his friends. Tom and Andrew are both Chipotle-lovers and Tom will always take up an opportunity to visit the restaurant. Plus, it was nice to visit with Andrew (who is also at UCLA).

Today Tom's parents and his sister Denise and her husband John had the pleasure of visiting our wonderful apartment. We went to the Breadbar to celebrate Tom's mother's birthday. It is always wonderful to have visitors. After they left we went to a welcome home party for a fellow law school student/ward member/friend who has just returned from working for a firm in Hong Kong. I am definitely suffering from sugar overload. Afterwards we played Cities and Knights of Catan (this really extreme version of Settles of Catan which has even more rules) and had lots of fun with some of our wonderful ward members. I love our ward.

By the way, I walked to work again on Friday and I've decided that I really enjoy it. I may start walking regularly.

early morning

One thing that we were sad about when we decided to move is that we would give up the ability to walk to to and from work/school. Up until today I have been taking the bus (it pretty much stops right in front of my apartment and right in front of my office), but I walked to work today. It really wasn't that bad.

http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=from:+3245+Sepulveda+Blvd,+90034+to:+924+Westwood+Blvd,+90024&sll=36.879621,-95.625&sspn=42.824547,94.746094&ie=UTF8&z=13&om=1