1st Baby...

I always feel so stupid calling and making appointments. I don't know any of the lingo the doctors want to hear. I was referred out to Fresno's St. Agnes Hospital for our big Ultrasound, and when I called this morning to make an appointment, I felt that now-familiar apologetic conversation coming on: "I'm sorry, this is my first baby, so I don't know what exactly I need to be asking for, but I need [generic description]." Blah. It's not like I don't pay attention when the doctor tells me what I need, it's just that they assume I know exactly what it is, and am familiar with these terms. I'm sure every first time parent has felt this way - it just seems more noticeable when I'm in a new place.

The good news is we have an ultrasound appointment on APril 21 - the day after we get back from Germany! We'll find out the sex, woot!

new haircut

got my hairs cut for the first time since being in Cali. By a very nice lady. I think she did a good job, I wasn't expecting the wedge-ness, but i'm fine with it, i like it. She made sure to cut off all my damaged hair from Japan's water. This is the picture I took in to her:


UPDATE:

The most important thing about this haircut is that it finally has gotten rid of all my damaged hair courtesy of Japan. Danielle, my hair cutting lady, said it was indeed damaged and exceedingly dry, most noticeably on the top layer. And a little green at the ends. GREEN. I told her how women who have thier hair dyed blonde in Japan come out more strawberry-blonde- because when the dye goes on, it turns hair slightly green - then red is used to counter-act the green. She said that made sense with what she's seeing. Gross! So my priority was to have all my Japan hair cut off - even if that means shorter hair. I just want my healthy hair back - where I can run my hands through it without getting a tangled dry mess. So with dryness-greenness-and-damages cut off, my hair should be 1000x healthier. Yay hair!

Slider and the Bee

Me: Slider, don't chase the bees! They'll sting you, silly boo!

Slider: They ...can't ...sting ...me ...if I eat them!! nomnomnom...

An Irish List

As daughter of an Irish musician, and with many trips to Ireland - and therefore many pubs - under my belt, I feel I know a thing or two about Irish music. So I've compiled a list of "must-have" Irish songs. They're not all drinking songs, some are very common, some less so. As a disclaimer, most of the ones I consider "classic" are ones I grew up listening to my dad play in The Flying Cows of Ventry, his band with two of his brothers.

1. Black Velvet Band

2. Black and Tan

3. Tim Finnegan's Wake

4. Irish Rover

5. Wild Rover

6. Roddy McCorley

7. A Nation Once Again

8. Whiskey in the Jar

9. The Old Triangle

10. Rising of the Moon

11. Seven Drunken Nights

12. Rare Oul' Times

13. From Clare to Here

14. Town I Loved So Well

15. Old Dun Cow (MacIntyre)

The Clancy Brothers, the Dubliners, and Paddy Reilly are the most famous for these songs and also the most traditional. But if you're looking for a more contemporary Irish, the Dropkick Murpheys, the Brobdingnagian Bards, or Metallica's version of Whiskey in the Jar.

Most of these can be found on one of my dad's two CD's, and are able to be purchased via iTunes. iTunes is great because you can just search for the title of the song, listen to 5 versions of the song, and see which you like best.

I could probably continue my list for ever and ever, but 15 seems to be a good play list.

What have we been up to recently....

-My friend Katie hoested a birthday party for me last week. We made chocolate mousse from scratch and Diane's red sauce recipe. Unfortunately, Dave was on duty that night and wasn't able to attend my party, but he did make me a birthday breakfast of pancakes :)

-Resolved my expiring drivers license issue - via military extension. A process involving lots of paperwork including a letter signed by the squadron's Commanding Officer.

-This past weekend, Dave went skiing with the other Junior Officers in his squadron at Lake Tahoe. I think he had a pretty good time, we'll see if he took any pictures to document it. He said the skiing there uncomparable to that on the East Coast. I'm looking forward to skiing there next winter.

-While Dave was skiing, Katie took me to Anaheim, home of the Angels and Disneyland, and her sister's NAWG conference. I was introduced to the very different side of the American economy as we ate dinner and held a live auction for the National Association of Wheat Growers. We had a grand ole time helping Cori set up for the banquet, and Katie and I were runners, retrieving contact information from the winning bidder. Saturday was spent at Seal Beach, a great example of un-commercialized California beaches, reeking only of alluring charm. We spent hours wandering along Main Street's shops, finding some great birthday gifts for Maya (I bought her a Fancy Nancy sparkle puzzle and Katie bought her a pink ukulele, which she'll learn to play guitar on, or just play with). We had lunch at Crema Cafe and it was ahhhmazing. I'm still dreaming about that turkey sandwich. We ended the day - and the conference obligations - with a celebratory dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, where we discussed Cori's future plans to move to Thailand as a missionary-slash-agricultural researcher. Sunday we had planned to go to Hollywood, but low-and-behold, it was Academy Awards night, We considered star-gazing, but decided to check out Huntington Beach, the copywritten capital of Surf City, USA. We had a great lunch there, and a brisk stroll on the beach where we did see a surfer catch some wave.

-Dave's been on a night schedule last week and this week. This means he doesn't go in to work until 10ish, but doesn't get home from work until 10ish either. It's messed up our relaxing evening routine and I don't care for it. We'll be happy when this phase is over.

-I fixed a running toilet. Our toilets have the tendency to run and run and run, and after discovering the cause being that the chain was catching under the plug, I did some fiddling and shortened the chain. It's worked in the short term, but we'll see how it does in the long-term.

-I had a baby appointment this morning. It took all of 5 minutes. We listened to the heartbeat and was very glad this was an external magic wand instead of an internal magic wand. We'll find out the sex right after we get back from Germany, in about 6 weeks.