baby updates

everyone was very interested in seeing baby boy move the whole weekend.

a quick pregnancy question: how come nobody ever told me how CRAZY it is to feel and SEE the baby move around? i for some reason had no idea that you could see the baby moving at such an early stage in your pregnancy. i knew that you could see it when the baby is huge and about to come out, but i've been able to see little baby kicking around for about two months now. people really need to share these things with first-time pregnant women.

sometimes it's like he's having a fun little solo dance party in there, he's moving around so much. i LOVE watching it. i could sit and watch him move around for hours and still be entertained and surprised every time my stomach rolls and pops. last night, while tommy was reading, i just sat and watched this very antsy baby for probably half an hour as he apparently learned jiu jitsu. it has not yet ceased to amaze me.

but anyways, everything's going well, pregnancy-wise. baby boy's apparently around a pound and a half right now. my own weight gain is picking up speed and i'm eating all. the. time. (but that's not really anything new, right?) i feel great during the day, but i crash at around 8:30 every night, when i'm tired enough to go to bed. i have to find a new doctor in santa monica and go have some check-ups, but i haven't gotten around to it yet--that will be one of my jobs for today (hopefully). my big problem is finding things to do to exercise every day, so i'm off to work on that problem right now.

Elder Austin Keith Murphy

one of the major benefits of being here in santa monica for the summer is being close to my family, particularly for this momentous weekend. the first murphy missionary just entered the mtc today! this memorial day weekend was pretty much a celebration of everything austin, from eating at his favorite restaurants to listening to him speaking in church to having all of his friends coming over to say good-bye to him before he left for the next two years. he did an AMAZING job on his farewell talk (go here if you are in any way interested) and i even got to see him off at the airport. 

in the couple of days before his farewell, we did a lot of fun stuff, like playing scattergories,

doing just dance! on the wii,

and having a picnic and family ultimate frisbee game at the park.

we made sure to take a few family pictures because the family is going to have at least one additional member by the time he gets home. since dallin is two years younger than austin, we might not all be together for a family picture for four years. if that is the case, i bet the family will look drastically different by then! cole will be towering over the rest of us, at the very least. 

austin and baby austin (as austin insisted on calling him) bonded.

and, the good-bye walk at the airport.

whoops, tommy had to work and camille and brandon had already gone back to idaho. but these are the siblings who were at the airport.

bethany ACTUALLY GIVING SOMEBODY A HUG! it really WAS a momentous occasion--usually she's just a leaner more than a hugger. it WAS also her fourteenth birthday--what a way to celebrate.

and, he's off!

he insisted that this canada flag hang up outside our house for the next two years, at which point we'll replace it with the flag of whatever country or state dallin goes to, i'm sure. 

there's not much else to say except that we're all really confident that austin is going to be a great missionary. he is the world's most determined (stubborn) person, and he's already gone a long way in turning that determination (stubbornness) towards learning the gospel, becoming a better person, and preparing for a mission. he will definitely be a major force for good in montreal.


now that tommy and i each have a brother on a mission, kurt and austin, we are determined to be better letter writers. we have sadly neglected kurt with all the craziness of this year. but we will be better! at least once a week, right? it can't be that hard...

week 1 in santa monica

well, we've enjoyed our first week of life here in santa monica. tommy started his internship on monday, just three days after we arrived in the state. in case i didn't explain it on here before (which i didn't), he's working at the rand corporation this summer. his internship is twelve weeks long, and he's working on a project dealing with group therapy data and analyzing how the groups change and how that affects the effectiveness of the therapy (and whatnot). he's enjoying it, and is AWESOME, of course. look at him leaving the apartment for his first day of work:

i surprised him (not really) and picked him up from work the first day to go explore downtown santa monica. tommy's office is about 35 feet from the beach (not kidding) and the famous SM pier (see the ferris wheel and roller coaster in the background?) so we parked the car and explored. we enjoyed some delicious, cheap california strawberries on the beach, a mini-picnic of sorts. then we walked over to the 3rd street promenade, the upscale santa monica outdoor shopping mall, and walked around and had dinner. AND gelato. (the next day, my mom emailed me a news story about a mountain lion that had been captured at the promenade mall that morning. CRAZY and super random.)

most exciting, however, is that our friends the moweses came to visit! nick mowes and tommy were roommates in the legendary centennial year, before i met tommy (i was blissfully living in the dorms, a few blocks away). a few months after they lived together, nick married diana, and then about two years later we all happened to live together in the same byu married ward. and long story short, they came down for vacation this first week and we got to hang out with them! we met up with them in santa monica on thursday and had dinner, and then went to a dodgers game with them on friday. THANK GOODNESS for friends--we were so excited to have visitors in our very first week.

in case you're wondering what i'm doing during the day while tommy's at work, i spent most of the week going on bike rides/walks around our neighborhood to get some exercise, taking care of errands and other sorts of random issues i'd been procrastinating, and coming up with some projects to keep me busy, such as making photobooks with all the pictures we've taken since 2009. there's a library ONE BLOCK away from our apartment, so that's keeping me happy and occupied. in addition to all of this stuff, we were down in irvine with my family this weekend, but i'll post about that in a separate post. 

we are determined to not waste a single night of our time here in california. we want to be sure to be awesome la residents/tourists and to do everything that we can while we're here! i'm going to check out a california guidebook at the library this week, and plan on making a list of all the things we want to see and do while we're here. 

california or bust!

one week ago, we left our dear little apartment in north carolina, and set out on a week-long quest to make it to california. we did not take as many pictures of the drive as we intended to, but that's all the better for you so that this post isn't any LONGER.

the funny thing is that our freeway, only 2 miles away from our apartment and the one that i took every day to get to raleigh for school, is the same exact freeway that takes you all the way to california. we could have just hopped on in durham and stayed on there for 2300 miles until we hit barstow. we didn't, because we had the VERY IMPORTANT GOAL of visiting alabama and mississippi, two states neither of us had been to. so we spent the first day on the 85 and the 20, cruising our way through south carolina, georgia, alabama, and mississippi, where we stopped in tupelo to stay the night. we saw some excellent sights, like this giant peach-shaped water tower thing (kind of reminds me of james and the giant peach, right?).

and for those of you who are NOT very knowledgeable about mississippi or elvis, tupelo happens to be elvis's birthplace. we stayed in an econo lodge about 2 miles away from his home, so we stopped by in the morning on our way out of town. we didn't pay to go in, though--we just snapped a few pictures and then snuck away. his house was about the size of a schoolbus, maybe. not very big for someone who grew up to be The King. did you know that he had a twin brother who was stillborn?

and then we drove on to memphis, where we completed our Day of Elvis by visiting graceland, the much more fitting home that elvis bought and lived in for many years. i'm putting WAY too many pictures of graceland in this blog post, but OH MY GOSH IT WAS SO AWESOME. the peacock stained glass, the golden/blue/violet curtains, the dark mirrors on all the walls, the dark wood cabinets in the kitchen, the green shag carpet on the ceiling... i loved it. it was the most fun house we've ever visited, but since we've mainly visited old presidents' homes (george washington, thomas jefferson, andrew jackson), that's understandable. the 70s decorations were equal parts tasteless and AMAZING.

and, of course, elvis is buried on the property. he was buried in a normal graveyard in memphis, but after a couple of months the estate realized that all of his crazy fans were willing to do plenty of things to his grave, so they moved him to the backyard. what a lovely, classy grave. it went perfectly with the spangled cross (not pictured) put there by the graceland staff.

even the trash cans in the visitor center got in on the fun!

and then we drove, and drove, and drove, and drove. somehow i totally missed oklahoma (even though we stayed there overnight) AND texas, so all you get are arkansas and new mexico.

and we stayed in flagstaff, drove and ate along route 66, and visited the grand canyon. here are a bunch of pictures of the grand canyon. there's not much to say about them, except that the grand canyon is so. big.

and then, without further ado, we drove to california! we made it to irvine and spent the evening with my family (since we were TIRED OF DRIVING) and then came up to santa monica on saturday to check out our new apartment. we LOVE it--it's tiny, old, and the blinds are missing some crucial elements (luckily there was an extra sheet that we hung up over the bedroom window so that we don't have to go into the bathroom to change every time), but it's in an adorable neighborhood, 2 miles away from tommy's work, 1.5 miles from the beach, and half a block away from a library. what else could you ask for? here are some pictures of our street:

we are CHAMPION road-trippers, as evidenced by our free, matching sunglasses. (mine broke somewhere in oklahoma, so we picked some up at a festival going on a few blocks away from our apartment on saturday.) 

seriously, whenever we told anyone that we were driving across the country, they always said, "i'm so sorry!" or "that sounds awful!". but we actually LIKE doing it. we spent most of our time listening to books on cd (the firm by john grisham, and patriot games by tom clancy) and occasionally singing along to music. what else do you need to keep yourself entertained? unfortunately, mr. baby is probably going to affect our road trip enjoyment levels, or so everyone keeps telling me. but i think we can chalk this one up to being a resounding success.