Pickles Anyone?

It's been so nice to have my appetite back!! And I really haven't had any weird cravings or anything I don't think. But I do LOVE pickles right now. That was one thing I could eat even when I was feeling sick. At least I haven't had the infamous "Pickles and Ice Cream" craving yet.

I'm still not into chocolate really though. Kind of depressing I know! I can eat a chocoloate chip cookie, but if the main ingredient is chocolate I don't want it. I guess it's okay though, I know I need to be eating healthy anyway. Another weird food aversion I've had is chicken. Prior to getting pregnant, chicken was my main source of meat. Now all I want is red meat. (Not bloody red, but beef.) Who knows....this whole experience is just strange to me.

So the other night, Brian and I sat down to watch a movie. We watched the Clint Eastwood movie, Gran Torino. At the end of it, I found myself crying! And not just a tear or two, but I had some pretty good waterworks going. Brian found this to be really funny!! Don't get me wrong...he was being nice about it. But he thought it was funny that I cried during a CLINT EASTWOOD movie. It did have a sad ending though (at least I thought it did!). If you haven't seen it, I would say that it was pretty good. We did skip through quite a few scenes in the beginning though. I thought it had a pretty slow start and I hated all the swearing that they had in it. But the middle and end were definitely great!

Nothing else is really new here. I'm still not showing really. So I don't have any pictures to post. But I'll keep you all updated!

More Pictures!

Here are some more pictures from Brian's Change of Command Ceremony.

And here's more pictures from Brian's Bataan Death March.
This is a picture of the big group that went to compete from the hospital.

Anxious to get the race started.

The Co-Ed Heavy Team!

Beautiful Scenery!

The big finish!!

These past few weeks!

I know I haven't updated this in over a month, but I do have an excuse as to why I haven't. Some of you have asked if there is a Spring Break Part 2 coming...and there was supposed to be. I had good intentions of putting up pictures of Brian's Bataan Death March that he participated in the last weekend of Spring Break but that obviously hasn't happened. I would do that now, but I'm not sure where those pictures are currently located. So they'll come at a later date! But, his team did very well at the Bataan. They beat last years winning time by over 30 minutes!! Despite those efforts, they did not come in first. I believe they got 3rd...but it was so long ago that now I'm not 100% sure.

The big reason I haven't been updating my blog is because I'm pregnant and I really wasn't feeling well at all for about 6 weeks!!! I had some bad morning sickness, but it hit me in the evenings. Starting at about 4 PM, I would start to feel nauseous. And that would last until I went to bed. I ended up losing 10 pounds, but I'm definitely feeling better now!!! Thank goodness!! Brian and I are finally eating dinner together again. Poor guy lived on cereal for dinner for way too many weeks!! He knows how to cook, but he didn't mind eating cereal. Plus, if he made something that gave off too much odor when he cooked, it would make me feel worse!

We are very excited! The baby is due November 19th. I'm into my second trimester, so hopefully things just keep getting better!! I promise to do a better job of keeping you all informed on our progress. As far as future plans go, I'm still planning on going to Graduate school this fall. Just need to figure out how my semester finals will work out for this first semester. Brian is also the current Company Commander for the medical company. Here are a few pictures of his Change of Command Ceremony.

Spring Break Part 1

My spring break is almost over. It has been a great week away from work. Brian and I headed off to Las Vegas last Friday. Here are the highlights:

We took a tour of the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam.

We're smiling in the picture below...but not so much once we were on our drive back from the Grand Canyon. It ended up being a lot longer drive than what we expected. Basically we were on the road from 7 Am to 10 PM and only stopped at the Hoover Dam for about 10 minutes and the Grand Canyon for 2 Hours. The rest of the time was spent in a bus!!!

I wouldn't say that it wasn't worth the bus ride there, because it was absolutely breath taking. But, we probably would've done it all a little differently if we would've known how long the drive was and how little time we were going to spend at the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon.

The following day, we met up with my friends from Texas. We spent the day and night gambling, people watching, and walking. A lot of Walking!!!

Here's the hotel we stayed at: The Luxor. It was pretty on the inside and out. The only bad thing was the fact that the bed was pretty hard...but who sleeps in Vegas anyway?

We also went to the Shark Reef exhibit at the Madalay Bay Hotel and Casino. Here we are petting a stingray that was trying to burrow under the sand.

One of the most exciting parts of the trip was playing in a Blackjack Tournament. It was a $20 buy in, and you got to play with $2500 worth of fake chips. They gave cash prizes to the top 10 people out of the 96 that signed up. Brian can probably tell the story better, but in short I was so nervous to play for some reason. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking the entire time. Especially when I put all of my chips in on the last hand which was $15,000!!!! I won that hand and that put me in second place overall!!! But that didn't last very long because Brian beat me out of the second place position. Oh well...if someone was going to beat me, I was glad it was him. So we ended up taking 2nd and 3rd place!!! It was a lot of fun!!!

Here's a picture of us with our winning certificates!

We also visited the M & M World Store. It was 4 stories tall and one of my favorite stores we went to while being in Vegas.

And here's a picture of us prior to leaving. It was a great time and we can't wait to go back again!

The last part of our spring break will be spent apart. Brian is headed off to the Bataan Death March in New Mexico and I'm going back home to Nebraska to see family.

I see change in our future...

I have finally made up my mind concerning what I'll be doing once this current school year is over. I'm going to go back to school to get my Masters Degree in Operations Research. I'll be doing this full time so I can finish my degree before the Army moves us again. My step mom told me that I can't wear the K-State purple though. And I agree....I'll be wearing my Husker Red proudly!

As for Brian, he just got the Company Command position with the MEDDAC. This means he'll be attending a lot more meetings and making quite a few important decisions for the soldiers in the hospital. Unfortunately, he'll be pulled out of the physical therapy clinic to do this. He's excited about this new opportunity, but I know he'll miss practicing physical therapy. The ideal situation will be for him to have this position for 12-18 months, and then after that he'll go back to being a physical therapist.

School is going pretty good for me. Our state assessments are just around the corner, so the teachers are feeling the pressure. Once spring break gets here, life will be a little less stressful for me and the entire school.

Brian is still training for the marathon down in New Mexico. They have a 18 mile pre-qualifier here at Ft. Riley tomorrow morning. If their team can come in first place, they will get funding to make the trip down to New Mexico without spending a penny of their own money.

All in all, things are going great. The weather is very slowly starting to warm up. I actually went out without a coat the other day...and it was a steaming 45 degrees out. But it felt wonderful!!!

Waiting for the Warm Weather!

I'm ready for summer to get here. Heck, I'd be happy if we had a day where it didn't get below freezing! But it's not too bad, I'm actually getting used to it. I know!! I never thought I'd say those words! We are keeping ourselves busy in spite of the frigid temperatures. Here's a little break down of what we've been up to the past couple of weeks.

We've been watching lots of football! It's going to be boring after the Super Bowl. There won't be anything on TV to watch on the weekends once it's over.

Here's my friend from work, Jenn. After we finished watching the Vikings whoop up on the Cowboys we decided to scrapbook a little while the guys played video games.

Brian and I went fishing last weekend. We tried a couple of lakes, but guess what....they were frozen solid!!! So we headed to the river. We didn't stay very long because it was pretty cold and there wasn't a fish in sight!

I've been baking a lot as well. I love trying out new recipes, and that's what I've been doing. In the past week or so I've made 7 new things. They include: homemade cinnamon rolls, monkey bread, pound cake, baked mac & cheese, chicken pot pie, roadside diner quiche and minestrone soup. Brian even got in the cooking mood so he tried a new recipe for chili con carne. They were all keepers. Here's a picture of the monkey bread and pound cake.

More scrapbooking!

Spending time with our pets! I know, you get to see a lot of pictures of them. But they do keep us entertained and busy.

Brian and I have also kept ourselves busy with one of spare bedrooms in the basement. We finally got all of the drywall up and it has been taped and mudded. We still need to do a couple more applications of mud. But it's getting there!

When I first started this post I didn't think I'd have much to show you guys, but I guess we have been pretty busy these past few weeks. Nothing too exciting, but we like to be at home together. We hope everyone is doing well where ever you may be reading this. Know that we are thinking about each and everyone of you!

Personal Update

Well I know that I'm excited for this new year, especially because it means I made it through half of the school year and I'm finally on the down hill slide. I made a countdown calendar and there are 84 more SCHOOL days! 84 seems like a pretty big number but if I can make it to spring break there will only be 46 days left. I'm learning how to deal with/handle the kids at school and I can honestly say that I don't "hate" going to work every day. I'm even having some pretty good days. But I still don't see myself teaching there next year.

By now I'm guessing most of you know that Brian and I have been trying to increase the size of our family. Not with any more pets, but with the human variety! We've actually been trying for over a year and a half and we've been unsuccessful. So I finally made an appointment with a specialist last Thursday. She thought I had endometriosis and she wanted to do a laparoscopic surgery to confirm. So the following day (yep the very next day) I went in to have the procedure. It's nice seeing a civilian doctor, I didn't have to wait a month to try to make an appointment. The doctor could not see any signs of endometriosis or any other condition that may be causing us issues. At first I was a little disappointed because I really wanted answers, but it is Good News that I don't have endometriosis!!!

That's the update on my end. Brian is still doing very well. It's actually his birthday today!! Yay!! He's actually out in this freezing weather doing a 9 mile ruck march. He's training to do the Bataan Death March in New Mexico. Crazy guy!! For those of you who do not know what this is, it's a full marathon (26.2 miles) but you are wearing your army uniform including the boots and a 35 pound ruck sack. Did I mention it's in the sands and hills of New Mexico? Like I said, he's crazy!!!

Brian is also making quite the impression on everyone around him. He has actually been offered a company command position for the hospital. He hasn't decided if he's going to accept the offer. Right now he's leaning towards not going for it because he wants to put in for the opening with the 10th Special Forces Group in Fort Carson, CO. That is his ultimate dream job! I'll keep you posted as we find out more!