3rd anniversary celebration

last week, on wednesday, we celebrated our THIRD wedding anniversary. 

and by celebrated, i mean that tommy drove from mobile, alabama to durham with dallin, and i flew from LAX to RDU with a several-hour long delay that meant i didn't get in until 1:30 am the next day. 

so we didn't really celebrate on the actual day. or even see each other. 

but tommy did buy me some beautiful flowers. (and i didn't get him anything... as usual, i am the worst.)

okay, but knowing that our actual anniversary was going to be spent apart, we DID celebrate a few weeks ago before leaving california. we spent our last free weekend in solvang and santa barbara, just 1-2 hours north of santa monica. we booked a night at a cute little bed and breakfast in solvang (not two nights--we were too cheap!) on friday and spent saturday wandering around the two cities. 

solvang is inland a ways, back in the santa inez valley (which is BEAUTIFUL) and is a cute little danish town in the middle of spanish country. tommy was very pleased to get a good danish meal of flaeskesteg (pronounced fleskastie) and meatballs, and we visited several bakeries to stock up on danish pastries all morning long. 

santa barbara isn't too far away, and we just walked around the downtown area for a while. then we rode on the harbor's little water taxi for about half an hour and spent some time relaxing on the beach. it was so nice!

other than the horrendous traffic we got stuck on both going there and back, it was a perfect little getaway to celebrate three years of happily married bliss. because of course, it has been that.

and it was also kind of a baby-moon (within a summer that was basically just a long baby-moon) to celebrate the end of our child-free existence. no more bed and breakfasts or solitary weekend trips for us for quite a while...

because ready or not, here he comes! 

we're BAAAAAACK!

in north carolina, that is. and oh, man, it feels great! i am LOVING being back in our own apartment again, with all of our own familiar stuff. we've been able to cook real meals! organize our stuff! and start tackling that giant to-do list i'd had going in my head for weeks before coming home!

yes, it really does feel awesome.

we miss the amazing california weather, though. oh yeah, and seeing the friends and family we were around so much all summer long.

we do have plenty of pictures to remember our summer, though.

also, these kids are crazy.

dallin and tommy had a great drive out here, though. they listened to two bourne trilogy books, visited the alamo, ate barbecue and cajun food and blue bell ice cream, and got a single straight razor shave at a barber's in alabama. what more could any man ask for?

i must confess, i was pretty jealous about them getting to go to new orleans. but i'm sure glad they're not there right now! good thing they did their drive LAST week and not this week, with hurrican isaac heading that way. 

they left on friday and got to durham on wednesday. i left on wednesday and got there only a few short hours after they did! hallelujah, thank goodness for air travel.

summer, baby, and cupcakes

today, we move out of our nice little apartment here in santa monica. we'll spend a few days down in irvine (with tommy commuting back up here for two more days of work) and then tommy and dallin start the drive across the country. and i fly back to NC on wednesday. there is so much to do once we get back there, but i feel like we're stuck in limbo until then. i could (and maybe should) be feeling panicky about the upcoming month(s), but i'm not. just yet.

i am totally in denial that baby boy is almost here (the due date is just 5 weeks away) (! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ahhhhh!). i feel MUCH more prepared than i did at the beginning of this summer, thanks to the ample free time i've had to read and learn everything i could about childbirth, etc., but it still doesn't feel like he's really coming. also, i've forgotten what it's like to NOT be pregnant . . . it seems like it would be weird to have a flat stomach now. i wonder if i'll miss being pregnant, miss feeling him moving around inside me all the time. because i sure do like that part of pregnancy, as uncomfortable as it can be at times.

this morning was the first time i've ever been woken up by his movements. at about 5 in the morning (i'm guessing by the little bit of light coming through the window), i woke up because he was digging his heels into my ribs. that only started happening this week, so i guess he really IS getting bigger to be able to reach all the way up there. i had a doctor's appointment and ultrasound last week, and she said that he was measuring two weeks big and has a ton of hair. taking after his mama, that boy.

in other news, we've done a ton lately: a trip up to utah to visit the leiningers and go to the murphy family reunion at aspen grove, more sightseeing around LA, a concert at the hollywood bowl, and a pre-anniversary celebration weekend up in solvang and santa barbara, but i'm too lazy and tired to upload the pictures from all of these things right now. here's one of tommy at the famous sprinkles cupcakes ATM in beverly hills (we just bought them from inside, but had to pose with the machine). their raspberry cupcake was probably THE BEST THING I'VE EVER HAD. aloha, sprinkles.

also, the sprinkles is only a block away from rodeo drive. we were standing under the rodeo drive sign and the guy taking our picture didn't include it in the picture . . . so you'll just have to take my word for it that we were there. tommy said, "i only recognize about 1/4 of the stores on this street", haha. we're definitely not the rodeo drive type.

and, that's all folks. stay tuned for more exciting news on the leininger front!

New Rules for Living

1. If you drive in the fast lane and drive at or below the speed limit, and have a long line of impatient cars stuck waiting behind you, the Giant Magnet of Death will pick up your car and deposit it on the side of the road.
2. If you leave your blinker on for miles without noticing it, your license will be revoked.
3. Pedestrians are allowed to either jaywalk intelligently or cross at the crosswalk while the walk sign is on. Stupid jaywalkers are banned.
4. No persons of any age or social class will be allowed to pay with a check at any place where a debit card may suffice.
5. All baby names will be subjected to the Baby Name Review Board before being assigned to a child. The Baby Name Review Board will be headed by me. All stupid names will be rejected.
6. Email forwards no longer exist.
7. Smoking in ALL public areas is banned.
8. Guns are banned. All people who own guns can move to Texas and secede from the United States.
9. Celebrity magazines that have stories about reality TV celebrities that I've never heard of are banned.
10. Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan are banished.
11. Checked bags are once again free of charge, and airplane flights are half-priced forevermore.
12. All people who write anything, ever, will be forced to take basic grammar tests before they are allowed to use a computer. Anyone who cannot tell the difference between you're/your and their/they're/there are banished.
13. All Facebook users who post about political topics will immediately have their accounts deleted forever.
14. People who use British spellings without actually being British are not allowed.
15. Hashtags (except when used in their proper Twitter function ONLY) and emoticons are abolished. (example: :( #becausetheyarestupid).
16. The Mommy Wars are over. So are endless feuds between Democrats and Republicans. All people will be able to talk about these issues intelligently and compassionately.
17. Grocery store wheelchair carts are only allowed to be used by people with legitimate disabilities. People who use them because they are obese must use regular carts.
18. Cowboy hats are banned. So are those stupid little lap dogs that women carry in their purses.
19. All fruits will always be delicious and in season all year round, particularly peaches.
20. Shipping and handling will always be included in the price of the online item being purchased, so that it's not a surprise when you're buying at the end.
21. Apple is not allowed to release any new operating systems for five years.

(Inspired by Bill Bryson's "Rules for Living" from I'm a Stranger Here Myself)

a real young women's gem

yesterday, i went home to do some laundry, have a dermatologist appointment, and hang out with the fam. while i was there, i pulled down the remaining four boxes of stuff that i had left at my house from their spot at the top of the garage and started to sort through them. these boxes were filled with all sorts of memorabilia: high school yearbooks and photo albums, my letters for my non-existent letterman's jacket, my baby dolls from eons ago, my (very, very numerous) soccer trophies and medals, AP US history notes (apparently i couldn't bear to throw them away when i packed the boxes five years ago), young women's binders and laminated quotes, random postcards and decks of cards and keychains from costa rica and canada and niagara falls, and all sorts of forgotten gems that i greatly enjoyed seeing and remembering.

and then i threw most of it away. we condensed the four boxes into two, took pictures of the to-be-trashed, and called it a good day's work. the two boxes will hopefully squeeze into our car for the road trip back to north carolina and the yearbooks and photo albums will go onto our bookshelves and everything will be where it belongs.

as i was going through my beehives binder, though, i found something that i had thought had been lost. it was dated 10/13/02 (almost an entire decade ago!), written in my own fourteen-year-old handwriting (original spelling and capitalization has been preserved), and was titled

Qualities I Want My Future Eternal Companion to Have:

• loves the Lord, Jesus, and the gospel
• believes in the gospel; testimony
• believes in me; has faith in me
• intelligent
• interesting to talk to
• fun to be around and hang out with
• return missionary
• trustworthy and honest
• loves me
• will love our kids
• understanding
• respects me
• not overspending/frugal with money
• good sense of humor/funny
• good temper
• physically fit
• patient
• won't rule over me, will let me be his partner
• lets me make my own decisions
• humble
• not criticizing or complaining
• hardworking and ambitious
• loves art and music/cultural
• knows me well enough to order my dinner for me
• is my BEST FRIEND
• I LOVE HIM
• he protects me
• courteous and polite

first of all, don't think too highly of my fourteen-year-old self: i'm pretty sure the accompanying YW's lesson was about how the first thing on your list should be that your future husband has a testimony and that you shouldn't have things like "tall" and "handsome" on your list (because i'm pretty sure this was a revised, after-lesson version and "tall" and "handsome" were prominent features on the original one with a testimony as more of an afterthought instead of item number 1).

and, not that i had TOO high of expectations as a brand new miamaid or anything . . . but i don't know if tommy could really order my dinner for me reliably. he said he could probably do it 50% of the time. 

otherwise, i think it's pretty much spot-on. 

swimming as an metaphor for life? MAYBE.

i started swimming for exercise a few weeks ago, after my poor knees refused to let me keep running and i was not ready to give up exercise completely. i bought a 20-swim pass at the santa monica swim center and have been going several times a week. i've never actually swum before--swimming to move and burn calories and go fast instead of just float around in the pool and play categories. the first time i went, i was totally out of breath after my first fifty meters. i had to take a break after every couple of laps before i could go on.

but it's gotten a lot easier really quickly. i started building up and trying to go longer distances and timing myself so that i could improve my times. every time i go, i set a long-distance goal that i try to hit (400, 600, 800 meters) and try to stay on my normal pace for longer and longer times. really, i started competing with myself and was feeling guilty any time i didn't go farther and faster than i did the day before.

today, i just swam. i didn't count or time or measure or even try to go particularly fast. i just hopped in the pool and lost count of how many times i turned around, how many meters i covered, how many minutes went by. i didn't think about my strokes or try to keep up with my lane buddy when he swam past me. i just kicked and pulled and thought and thought, and i kept going forever. i didn't need to stop until my goggles started boring holes in my skull and i felt like i was giving myself two black eyes.

it's not that trying hard and working to improve my exercise and my swimming times is a bad thing. it's just that sometimes i forget that right now, when i'm six months pregnant, is probably not the best time to train to become an olympian in a brand new sport.

it's okay to let go of my pride and just swim every once in a while.

FUN weekend FUN

we were eating dinner with my cousin andrew on thursday when he mentioned that this friday was a first friday celebration in venice. i know they have those in raleigh, a sort of art walk thing, but apparently here in venice they're all about the food trucks that line up along the street--there were probably 20 or 30 options to choose from. so we decided to go and see what it was all about. we were looking for the ever-popular grilled cheese truck (which always has an hour-long line and is beloved by many), but it apparently wasn't there, so we settled for some other food. 

the sidewalks were CRAZY crowded. you could tell which trucks were the most popular by how bad the crowds were around the truck.

we got the pota-tornado, with a giant sausage in the middle. there was an entire food truck dedicated JUST to these tornado potatoes. definitely seemed like such a boy thing.

andrew insisted that we needed a picture in front of the medical marijuana dispensary. please ignore my swollen face--i am six months pregnant.

we also bought some giant nachos and we were pretty much filled up. we ended the night by visiting diddy riese and getting some more ice cream sandwiches. all in all a VERY successful night, i would say.

and then today, saturday, we were determined to hit up some other la sites. first up was the original LA farmer's market, which has apparently been going since 1934. it did not seem like a farmer's market to me, since it had BUILDINGS instead of just canopies and clearly the people working there were not farmers selling their produce, but i'm not complaining. it was still great. AND we broke out our fancy new DSLR for this trip, so admire the quality of these pictures! TA-DA!

we were awestruck and amazed by the genius of these band-aid strips. mustache-shaped band-aids? SPAM BAND-AIDS!? there were about 10 other awesome kinds that we ogled and tried to think of reasons to buy. we ended up buying some as early christmas presents for siblings because they were so awesome.

and last but not least, we finally went on our bike ride down the bike path that goes for some-twenty-odd miles along the beaches up here. we went about seven miles each way, stopping to relax on the beach for a while in the middle. it was FUN and definitely something i wanted to do this summer--and probably a good thing we didn't wait any longer or else i would not have been enjoying it as much.

we walked our bikes a good ways on our way back down the venice boardwalk, which was INSANE, crowded, marijuana-smelling, and super classy. i couldn't believe how long it went AND how many cannabis dispensaries there were. go venice! stay classy.

  

and finally you all know what we've been up to all this time! and there are some great baby bump pictures in there to satisfy all you curious people.