Mount Rainier (14,410') with a glacier sliding down the mountain
Sea stacks along the coast
Self portrait in front of "world's largest spruce tree"After 9 days in Arizona, Grady is back from leading his MSU trip. The trip is basically the final exam for students getting their masters online through MSU. Sounds like he had a good group of students and good weather. He leaves for his next trip on Wednesday and will be in Washington state for 9 or 10 days.
Baby daddies should not stand on the edge of canyons.
The Little Colorado River, east of Winslow, AZ.
A hotel where the group stayed in Winslow, Arizona, and apparently, the nicest thing in Winslow.
I have been helping coordinate a few aspects of Downtown Starkville's summer promotion, Christmas in July. When the guy with the fun jump/bouncy house/moonwalk/whatever showed up, he said "So are you going to monitor the kids all day?" Immediately, I said, "Um, NO." I had plans to do a lot of napping this afternoon. But apparently, if you want supervision with the fun jump, you have to ask for that when you order it. So, from 10am-4pm, I made sure the little munchkins did not kill each other or roll out onto their heads. It was not bad. Weather was good and I had good company: our Downtown Business Association intern, Bethany Shipp, Miss Houston North Central, set up her autograph station next to me and SpongeBob. Some awesome neighbors brought me lunch and their kiddies got to jump around too. The princess was not sitting on Santa's lap under ANY circumstances.
We were lucky enough to be able to babysit our friends' new puppy it's first night away from the kennel in Starkville. This precious little guy (Pedro) now belongs to Bryan and Christine Bridges, but we got to keep him for a night until Bryan could come pick him up. I didn't have my good camera, but you can still tell how teeny and cute he is. He was only 6 weeks old in these pictures. He didn't cry at all, even at night, because he had Miller for company.
I am 13 weeks along today. I bought my first maternity pants this weekend because nothing in my closet fits except a few stretchy skirts. It is so funny how random strangers feel the need to tell you how much bigger or smaller you are than their daughter/granddaugher/sister, etc. I guess it comes with the territory. There is also a lot of belly rubbing, but only by people I know so far. My friend Amy Aarhus is 1 week ahead of me, my friend Amy Stapleton is 1 week behind me, and Grady's sister Jennifer is 1 month ahead of me. I think I am past the starving-all-the-time stage and am into the exhausted-all-the-time stage. As long as it's not throwing up (I haven't been sick at all), its fine with me! If I look aggravated in this picture, it's because it was hot outside and a lady at church had just told me how big I was for 13 weeks.
We went to Scott Wright's surprise 30th birthday party in Birmingham this weekend. His birthday is Dec. 27, so he was very surprised. We got to see a lot of Vicksburg people including Jeff & Bess Averett's 1-yr-old, Addison - too cute. She was really enjoying those Cheetos. That is how happy I am when I get to eat too. The guys went golfing, the girls went shopping, then we all met back at the Wright's house for a cookout.
Well, it seems that you're not cool unless you have a blog. Since we have a lot of family and friends scattered around, it seems like the right thing to do. Especially since we actually have some exciting news to follow now that I am pregnant! Baby Blog!! Even though blogs are a little scary to me, I am going to give it a try.
MSU is in the College World Series for the first time since 1998!! Go Dawgs! Grady is there!
