While we are on the subject of names . . .

I recently asked Micah to make a list of names he would consider for our child. Although we have been waiting to find out the gender and for me to get my grad school applications submitted before we really start discussing it, I thought we should at least get something to work with. I was really looking forward to this part of being pregnant, but for some reason I'm having a hard time even thinking about it anymore.

Perhaps Micah's list is part of the reason why:
This is what we have to work with? This is where we are starting on our road to finding the perfect name for our eldest child? My brain hurts just looking at it.

Of course, this is coming from the same man that thinks that 1 blue otter pop + 1 green otter pop = dinner.

*sigh*

Happy Birthday Lizzie!!

I just thought I would take advantage of the fact that I can now submit blog posts as my individual self and wish my beautiful wife a very happy birthday. And as one of my birthday presents to her I would like to tell everybody who reads this crazy site of ours a little secret about Liz:

Liz doesn't like the name Liz!

The name originated from a class that she was in as a kid that contained three Elizabeths. The teacher did not want to bother with identity confusion and thus assigned the shortening of Liz to our Elizabeth. And, as old habits are hard to break, it has stuck until this day. Liz has told me on multiple occasions that she would rather change her known name to Lizzie or just Elizabeth, but it is such a hard task that we have just given up.

So, this may or may not catch on, but I think we should all try and dispatch the old title of Liz and sub in a new, more Lizzieish name in its place. It may be hard at first, but we will get used to it.

And, Liz (or should I say Lizzie) if you hate this idea and it is the worst birthday present you could conceive of then please go ahead and delete this post. If not, I feel free to expand on any details I missed.

Thanks everybody, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZZIE!!!!

Disco Fetus

If we were to have an ultrasound today, I'm pretty sure it would be something like this:


Personally, I think Micah is jealous that I get to feel it and he doesn't. I'm sure the novelty will wear off at some point. Our real ultrasound is in ten days--that's December 7th, if you wanted to mark it on your calendars (you can be sure it is marked on ours). So far we've had lots of votes for a girl and two votes for a boy. Anybody want to change their vote? Anybody who hasn't voted yet want to take a stab? You've got a fifty-fifty chance of being right . . . .

Other than that, all I can say is it certainly is squirmy. Especially when I decided to try lying on my stomach last night . . . I don't think I'll be doing that for another five months.

A List for Thanksgiving

But first, a poem. This was written by Rebecca and Elizabeth Blackhurst approximately 13 (14? 15?) years ago.

On Thanksgiving Day
All horses will eat hay,
but that won't go for me.
I'll eat lots of turkey
with mounds of jerky.
. . .

Okay, I don't remember the rest. Maybe somebody in my family can dig it up from the files and finish it for me. Now, the list entitled "What we are Thankful for":

1. Ronaldo (pictured above), who sacrificed his life for our gastronomic pleasure (it was definitely the best turkey we have ever roasted).
2. Allrecipes.com, the lovely site that guided us through our first Thanksgiving turkey, from thawing to brining to gravy.
3. Kareena, Jay, and Gig who joined us this day so we didn't have to celebrate alone.
4. Ohio State football.
5. Fetal movement.
6. Grad school applications, for being submitted.
7. President Hinckley for leading us, even though he is really tired.
8. Our jobs, for letting us not work today or tomorrow.
9. Our camera, which helped us document our first Thanksgiving feast.
10. Brita, the pitcher that purifies our water.
11. Roosters, because that which does not kill us makes us stronger, right?
12. That we get to see family again in one month.
13. Spike and Greek, the spices that supplied Ronaldo with added taste and smell.
14. The Hursts who let us paint their apartment just the way we like it.
15. The church, which, in case you were wondering, is true.
16. Each other.

Hors Douvres, Anyone?

Mom Blackhurst is looking for ideas about something hors douvre-ish/appetizerish to make for the ward Christmas party in a few weeks. Apparently none of my siblings who live at home like mushrooms, so stuffed mushrooms, her favorite, are out of the question. We're looking for something slightly more . . . sophisticated than the olive-pickle-cheese kabobs that were a favorite in the Blackhurst household back in the day. I personally don't have a lot of experience with this kind of thing, but maybe some of you do? What is your favorite hors douvre? And maybe you could tell us how to make it, too . . . . The party isn't until Dec. 9th, so we've got about three weeks to come up with something. Thanks a bunch.

Night Light

It's 1:00am and we have work in the morning. So why are we still awake?

Introducing our new fancy schmancy light shade lamp thing!!!!

We found the template and idea here and the directions here. It is made from a vellum calendar I received from one of our printers as a sample. And now it's finally going to good use.

Hang on Sloopy!

Two good things have happened so far this weekend: We put our apartment back together (after dismantling it for painting) and, more importantly, the Ohio State Buckeyes beat Michigan in the biggest game in college football. Happily, the two things came together to provide a wonderful opportunity for us to show off our apartment and the new paint job to some of our friends. Now, I have to say that although we put everything back together and it feels more like we are moved there are still a few things that need to be done as far as really being settled in the apartment goes (painting cabinets and doors, hanging pictures, making and hanging curtains) so we're not going to show you all of the wonderful things we have done just yet, mostly because we still have a few wonderful things left to do. So, let's get back to the business at hand:

WAY TO GO BUCKEYES!

Everyone pitched in a bit to make this the best football party that we have ever had. Micah and I cleaned and painted the apartment scarlet and gray. Seth and Amy brought their nice big TV. Leavin and Amanda brought pigs-in-blankets. Gina Smith brought all of her OSU decor, her "Best D*** Band in the Land" cd for after-touchdown celebrations, and a lot of her friends. Jim Tressel brought his classiness and genius to the sideline. Troy Smith, Antonio Pittman, and Anthony Gonzales brought their games. Really the only thing that went wrong was the OSU center brought his butterfingers, but something like that can't keep a good Buckeye team down. We laughed, we cheered, we almost cried (you have to admit there were a few controversial calls there), and in the end we were happy with the results. The Buckeyes remain undefeated and ranked #1 and we have a clean, mostly painted apartment that we got to share with some of our friends.

Feedback Wanted

*Hey Everybody,

If you haven't noticed, we have made a few minor changes to our blog in the last week. The most prominant is the title. It is now a fancy schmancy picture. We also altered the links to look and act a bit more stylized (underlines are so 2005) and shrunked our little dots.

Basically we are wondering a few things and we would be very grateful if you let us know what you think in the comments area.

1. Is everything working? (I am a newbie at this whole CSS thing and I would like to clean up any bugs that are out there.)

2. Do you like the changes? (why & why not?)

3. What would you add or change about our blog to **make it better?

We really like to do this whole blogging thing. We feel that it is our key connection with all of our friends and family that live so far away. This little rock of ours can get a bit lonely sometimes. We would love to do anything to make you all want to visit more often and comment like it's your job.

thanks,
liz & micah.

*We have found that blog posts that have pictures tend to get more comments.
**Don't bother mentioning it. I already spoke with Liz and she says a dunking booth is out of the question. Sorry.

Skewed Perception

Aren't glasses supposed to improve your vision as much as possible? I got my new glasses on Wednesday, but they seemed a little bit off. After trying to get used to them for a day and a half, I decided they were driving me crazy and that the prescription for the left lens is completely wrong, which it is. I went back to the eye doctor and the receptionist first tried to tell me it was because both eyes were working together to give me a clear picture, so if I couldn't see clearly when I closed one of them, it was still okay. When I told her that I couldn't see clearly using both of them (with my glasses on), she said the doctor was trying to strengthen my bad eye by making my better eye do all the work. Does this make sense to anyone? It sure didn't to me. Wouldn't that make my better eye worse, since it is straining more now? Anyway, I'm going back in on Tuesday to make them give me a better lens.

And a random sidenote, just for kicks: As we've been introducing ourselves in our new ward, Micah has been asked on multiple occasions if he is Hawaiian. "Micah, huh? Are you Hawaiian? Is that your Hawaiian name?" True, he has dark hair and dark eyes, which are also common features among the Hawaiian population, but the similarities end right about there. Of course, they seem to feel a little sheepish when he reminds them that it's Biblical . . . .

"It was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard."

We finally got a chance to tell our friends on the Tuesday evening shift at the temple about our "great expectation" (I'm talking about the baby), and of course, they are all very excited for us and eager to find out if it is a boy or girl and all of that (even though they realize that it means I will be retiring from the temple in April sometime). Among all of the congratulations and questions, one of the sisters shared with us this interesting story, a direct quote from which provides the title of this post.

Sister E, as I will call her, told us about her oldest son and his wife. He was from Hawaii, she was from Samoa. The two of them moved to the Marshall Islands soon after they were married. When they made a trip back to Hawaii to visit one summer, the wife went shopping and bought some maternity clothes and baby things. She told her mother-in-law that some of the sisters in her ward were pregnant and she was getting a few things for them. Sister E thought this was very nice, but didn't think too much of it. It wouldn't be until almost a year had past that she would find out that the maternity clothes and baby things were, in fact, for her daughter-in-law and grandchild.

Yes, folks, that is right. The couple did not tell anyone that they were having a baby. They did not tell anyone when the baby was born in December. It was not until April, when they came back to Hawaii to visit with their five month old child, that any of their family and friends found out about the baby. Sister E said that when they stepped off the plane with the baby she was more concerned about her daughter who hadn't come back from parking the car than she was about the infant her son was holding in his arms. Nobody believed he was their baby at first, but even after they were convinced, it took them a long time to warm up to him and really love him. Which is probably why she said, "It was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard." The rest of the family needed to have that pregnancy time, that time of anticipation, to prepare themselves and to learn to love the baby, just like the parents probably did.

Aren't you glad we didn't think of that?

A Pleasant Surprise

We walked home from church on Sunday and had hardly been home long enough to take off our shoes before there was a knock at the door. Two boys were standing there. One of them handed us a blue envelope with our name and address on it. Could it be? Was somebody actually coming by to collect our fast offering? We were so excited we could hardly contain ourselves. In our excitement we (meaning Liz) filled out the check wrong. After much flustering and tripping over ourselves we had the check and the donation slip filled out correctly and sent the boys on their way.

It has been since we lived in Provo that we last had our fast offering collected at our house. It was so nice to know that the ward knows who we are and where we live. I think we are going to like it here.

Our Moment of Glory, Revisited

Click here to see goofy pictures of the two of us running the marathon back in June.

And also, because I know you are curious, No, we did not hold hands the whole time. We did when they let us know they were going to take a picture, largely because as we were training a lot of people asked us, "So are you going to run hand-in-hand?" Of course, they were asking if we would stay together the whole time, but now (almost) all the evidence points to us being a really cheesy couple.

My favorite part is that Micah looks like he is about ready to die at the finish line and I look like I just took a walk in the park. It was a conscious effort. And please, pay no attention to my midriff. I wore the most modest shirt they offered, but it was obviously too short.