More Advice Needed

We only have six weeks until the baby's due. Its creeping up so fast. Since I got so much good advice from all of you on my "mom panel", I've decided to utilize you again. I'm wondering what stuff I should bring to the hospital. I know there is probably a lot of personal stuff that may not be best shared in the comments sections. If you would rather, please email me your advice at suzysullivan@gmail.com.

If you also have any good advice about labor, or the days immediately after, I'm all ears as well. We've been going to childbirth class for the last few weeks, and I can no longer hide my head in the sand. Up to this point, I've preferred just to not think about it, but now the time is drawing near and that doesn't really seem like an option anymore. I'm just excited to hold her in my arms, and I'm sure whatever it took to get there will be all worth it!

Thanks in advance! ...oh and Merry Christmas.

2008 Christmas Letter

Yesterday we sent out our second annual Sullivan Family letter to our family and friends. I doubt that we have everybody's email addresses or have the wrong ones. If you would like to be added to our list, please leave your email address in the comments.

We hope that everyone has a Merry Christmas!

Click on the images to enlarge and read the letter.

Don't forget to vote about when Baby Girl Sullivan will join our family!

Time to Catch Up

On December 1st I had 9 papers to write, 5 presentations to give, and 1 website to create for school, all before the end of the semester. On top of all that, Suzy and I began our child birth classes and I had three reports to edit for work. Now finally it is all done and some sense of normality can return to life.

First an update on the pregnancy. . .

Suzy at 27 weeks

Suzy at 29 weeks

Suzy at 33 weeks

For Thanksgiving we decided that instead of staying in Amherst that we would take a short vacation and head north to Canada. We drove up to Montreal and spent three days there. The weather mostly cooperated with us, though it was not exactly warm, it probably could have been much worse than it was. During our short three days in Montreal we visited 8 museums! We bought a pass that allowed us entry into most of the museums in Montreal and included a 3-day metro pass. It was a great deal and we had fun flying through the museums. 

This is the Montreal Cathedral of Notre Dame.

This is the square in front of the cathedral.

This is the stadium that they built for the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. I think the tower thing is where the flame was. Next to this stadium is the Bio-Dome, where they had four different climate zones inside the dome where they have animals running and flying around. It was one of our favorite parts of the visit. The first climate zone was the rain forest, which was a nice change from the cold of the outside even if we had to carry around our 8 layers of clothes.

This is a museum home that is across the street from the stadium. This house was cool because it is actually a duplex mansion owned by two wealthy brothers.

On our last day, the first one with blue skies, we drove up to the top of Mont Royal which overlooks the city. It is a great view. We took our lunch, a baguette and dip with us but since it was cold we ate in the car.

This past weekend we got our first big snow storm. Prior to this storm we had a nasty ice storm which knocked out power for thousands around us, including several people in our ward, but fortunately we did not suffer from that one. This past snow storm was really supposed to be two different storms, but it never stopped snowing from Friday afternoon to Sunday night. It snowed so mush that even Church was cancelled. In total we got probably close to 18 inches. This is the view past our three little Christmas trees out our window at all the snow.

Notice also that we have created a new poll on the right. Vote now to place your guess on when Baby Girl Sullivan will arrive!

Thanksgiving

This month has been very busy for us both and somehow the entire month has silently slipped past us without our knowledge. November has brought several highlights that we want to share with you, but our blogging has been found lacking. We resolve to do better and to catch up with our happenings soon. Stay tuned for pictures of our trip to Canada and news on everything else. . .

Family Pics

When my family was here in May, we had some pictures taken by some friends of ours who are photographers.  They turned out pretty good, so I thought I would post a few.  Only my mom has seen them at this point, so I'm sure the rest of the family would like to see them.

Of course, now we have a new niece and our baby on the way.  Its good to have some nice pictures, even if it is already outdated.
 

Aren't we cute?  

My mom was here this week and it was a lot of fun.  We bought a bunch of baby clothes so they baby is set for the first 6 months.  We looked at a lot of other stuff too and I am doing research to decided what to get for the bigger purchases.  Thanks again for all your comments.  They have helped a lot.  

Detachment from the world

So last week was a really busy week for me and I got very little sleep between Sunday night and Wednesday morning. I had a ton of school work to do and some big assignments due. So finally Wednesday night I was done with my classes for the week, and I felt so relieved. I finished class and began walking the few blocks south of campus to the Church where Suzy was at Institute to ride home with her. On the way I talked to my little sister on the phone. I got to the Church, stuck my cell phone in my jacket pocket and went in. We stayed there eating and socializing for a while before we left for home.

Thursday morning I got up and began doing some of the work that I needed to get done. I needed to use my phone so I looked for it in my pocket where I thought I had left it. But alas, it wasn't there. Dang! I thought to myself, I must have left it in the car, I guess I have to wait till Suzy gets home. So when Suzy got home I checked the car and . . . no cell phone. Now I was starting to freak out. Where was it. I usually don't lose things like this. We got Suzy's phone out and started calling my phone, hoping we could here it ring or vibrate or something . . . nothing!

We called someone from Church and asked them if they could let me into the Church building. They graciously and kindly agreed to meet me there. we searched carefully the rooms that I had been in . . . still nothing!

By this time I had pretty much given up hope. We decided to activate a spare phone that we had, but had never used. I called Sprint to activate it and they could not figure it out. I spent 30 minutes on the phone with them as the technical support guy made me do the same thing over and over and over, and it never worked, but he did not know what else to do. Then mercifully the signal got dropped. I called Sprint back a few hours later to try again, hoping that another tech support guy would know what to do. Boy was I wrong. I explained my problem and told him what I had done with the other rep and he made me do the same thing, for another 30 minutes. Then mercifully again the signal was dropped.

Friday I woke with optimism that maybe today I would get someone competent that would be able to fix the phone. Wrong again. Fortunately this time though the person did not make me do the same things over and over again. They had me do that same thing once then told me there was nothing they could do to help and that I had to go to a Sprint store. This time I only lost 15 minutes, so I was happy about that.

Saturday we went to the Sprint store at the mall and they were able to correct the problem. So now I have a working phone again, which is nice, but I miss my old phone. I was so familiar with it and this new one is complicated and not as easy to use as the old one was. Hopefully I will still be able to find my old phone so that I can at least retrieve all my phone numbers and other information that I had stored in it. I am just glad that we had a nice spare phone laying around and that we did not need to fork out a ton of money to buy a new, unsubsidized phone.

Great Cartoon

I do not know about everybody else, but I have really grown tired of politics lately, and have avoided bringing the topic up on the blog. However, I have always enjoyed political cartoons. The ironies and satire they point out can be awfully amusing. Yesterday my brother posted this cartoon on his facebook page, and I found it very amusing. So I thought I would share it.

We also want to thank everybody who shared their experiences with Suzy and me about baby stuff. We found all the information to be very helpful, and if anyone else thinks of anything please let us know.

Advice Needed

My mom is coming in two weeks and we're planning to go shopping for a lot of baby stuff. Since I'm new at this whole thing and I have many friends and family who are parents, I'm looking for your advice on baby products. I know all the obvious things I will need, but I would like to know what the most surprising thing is that you couldn't live without. And also, something you thought you would used a lot, and haven't used at all.

Any other advice you have on baby products is welcome. Also, if you have any books on babies that you really like, I'd love to know that too.

As far as life goes, things are going well. Work is going along fine and its good to be productive and earning money. I have been tired, but generally feeling really good. I'm wearing only maternity pants now, but I can still wear most of my normal shirts, although that will end soon I'm sure.

Yesterday we had an enrichment activity at church, which I'm now in charge of. We had a breakfast and a speaker who spoke about depression. The last week was stressful as I was trying to get all the loose ends taken care of. I'm glad it went fairly well and its over!

Time is flying by...My mom is coming in two weeks, and then it will be only a few weeks until Thanksgiving, and then it will be Christmas time which always flies by, and then little baby girl will be coming in only a month or so. We're really enjoying fall here and enjoying all the beauty around us.

General Conference

First I will start with an updated picture of Suzy. This one is Suzy at 23 weeks.

Between General Conference sessions on Saturday afternoon we ventured down a trail near our home, aptly named KC Trail. We walked through the woods, which were very pretty. Parts of the path were quite swampy so the trail had been raised on these wood platforms, some of which were pretty wobbly. This is my favorite picture from that day.

The trail led us across the train tracks near our house.

Me at the KC Trail sign...

After dropping Suzy off at work one day, I was killing time until an appointment I had and was driving around out in the sticks, when I came across this cool bridge. I thought it was a good picture so I decided to post it too.

This past weekend was perfect. The weather was bright sunny and relatively warm (mid 70s) and to top that off it was the official peak time for the fall foliage. Inspired by Elder Perry's talk at General Conference (Saturday Morning for those of you who missed it, read or listen to it here) we decided to go to Walden Pond and walk around Thoreau's old stomping grounds. It is certainly a nice peaceful place (when all the people aren't around, it was packed), but it was a beautiful location, especially with the leaves turning. These picks are us at Walden Pond.

Site of Thoreau's small cabin.

Tradition has it that fans of Thoreau add their own rock to this pile when they visit the site (next to his cabin). This is me tossing my small pebble onto the pile (this one was for Ms. Pera).

Sunday after Church, Suzy and I decided to take a nice Sunday drive through the woods to see more fantastic tree colors. We stopped along the Deerfield River for these.

I have other pictures of the fall here in Western Mass on Flickr, click here to see them.

Yankee Soil in Charleston

So on our way home to Amherst, we stopped for a day in Charleston, South Carolina. We both really enjoyed the beauty of this city. We decided to visit two old historic mansions in the city. One has purposely not been restored. The other one had been restored very nicely. Most of the old homes in the city have beautiful gardens in front of them.

One of the really popular things in the old days in Charleston was to have these "benches" on your porches. They are really fun, they rock side to side and bounce up and down. Though they seem to bend A LOT and there is always this thought in the back of your mind that it might break.

One of the biggest things to see in Charleston is Fort Sumter. It is all by itself way out in the middle of the bay. It was a 30 minute ferry ride out the Fort, then we had an hour to explore before we had to get back on the boat and go back to the mainland. One of the really interesting things that I learned about Fort Sumter is that the whole island was man-made from rock and earth shipped down to South Carolina from . . . New England. Therefore when the South attacked the Fort to start the Civil War, they were actually attacking Northern soil!

Just like at Fort Pulaski in Savannah, there were several cannon balls still embedded in the brick walls of Fort Sumter.

Overall we really enjoyed Charleston and look forward to having a chance to go back sometime soon.

Battery Recharger and Baby Bumps

When Suzy and I were unpacking our things a month ago I came across the camera battery recharger, and stuck it somewhere in our huge desk. Then several days later the camera battery died. I went to the desk where I thought that I had stuck the recharger, but when I got there I could not find it. So for several weeks we searched the house looking for the charger. Yesterday we both searched through the desk, and guess what. . . the charger was where I had checked first. I guess that somehow I missed it. 

Anyway, this is a long story to explain why we had not posted any Suzy pregnant pictures. So in in response to several requests I present Suzy's baby bump. . . 

This first picture is Suzy at about 17 weeks, a slight, but noticeable baby bump. People are often commenting that she doesn't look pregnant. That is because she lost 15 pounds during the first trimester, which she has only now almost fully gained back. This second picture was taken last night, at 21 weeks.

Several weeks ago, on an overcast but incredibly humid Saturday, Suzy and I went to an air show. We had a fun time. Here are some of the pictures from the air show (as a side note it was at this air show that the camera battery died).

Another brief aside, I just want to say how excited I am that the BYU Cougars Football team are now ranked #7 in the country!!! This week I had my marketing professor, and ASU alum, come up to me and congratulate me on how well my alma mater is playing these days. I had to gloat that our quarterback transfered to BYU from ASU! Even though we don't get to watch much of the games way out here, we are very excited and hope that the team can keep up the good work and destroy the Utes in November propelling BYU into a BCS bowl and possibly a second National Championship.!!!

Update

I have an update on my last post. I now have a job! Its not an amazing job, and it doesn't pay that great, but its decent, and I'm really in no place to complain. I'm working in accounts receivable at the Yankee Candle headquarters. They were looking for someone to work until the end of the year since Christmas time is their busy season. Its good timing and the people are nice.

Its too bad its through a staffing agency because then I don't get the benefits of working for Yankee directly (yummy candles) and obviously the staffing agency takes a big part of what Yankee is paying for me. But like I said, I'm lucky to have found something so its all good. I'm glad to be busy again and to have a little income. :)

Unemployed Again

The past year or so has been really hard for me as far as work has gone. I really enjoyed the job I had at Nature's Way and felt like my career was really on track for where I wanted it to go. After I got laid off when they cut the marketing department in half, my "career" has really gone downhill. I was able to get a job in Utah before we moved out here, but it was a little tricky as I knew I would be leaving in a few months. It was a decent job, but didn't have the prestige or pay anywhere near what I was making at Nature's Way.

Since we moved here, I spent the first 4 LONG months looking for a job with increasing discouragement as time when on. I eventually realized I would need a job doing something, and that I just couldn't wait any longer. I ended up working for a CPA helping with taxes (meaning doing a bunch of grunt work like printing, stapling, answering phones and dealing with a lady who gets stressed WAY too easily and likes to take it out on other people). It was hard to not feel like this job (and the pay) was below my skill level.

In Florida the economy is even worse than it is here, especially for temporary positions. I ended up working two and a half days over the whole summer. I was pretty sick, so I didn't mind too much. Now we are back here, I'm feeling good and I have less than 5 months to make money before the baby comes. We are very lucky that Casey school is all paid for and thanks to his assistantship, he actually gets paid a little bit. We are also very lucky that we made some money on the sale of our townhouse in Utah and that has kept us going thus far.

I had an interview about a week and a half ago for a seasonal position that I thought would be perfect for me. I was really excited about it and thought maybe, finally, my job luck had turned...however, I found out on Monday that they decided to hire someone else. I'm working with the temp agency I worked with before to hopefully find something, so we'll see how long it takes. Hopefully it will be soon! Its kind of funny to me to think about what I thought my career path would be and how much I thought I would accomplish before we had kids. It just goes to show you never quite know what life will throw at you

I didn't mean for this to be such a long post. I didn't write it to get your pity either. I just thought that sharing whats going on in life means sharing the frustrating as well as the exciting. Also, I know there are probably others out there who are struggling with similar difficulties, so its nice to know you are not alone.

We have so many good things in life and we really are very lucky. Hopefully things will turn around soon and I'll have some good news to report!

Was the poll right??

61% of you voted that it would be a girl...and you were right!! We're having a girl! We went to the ultrasound today and the baby looks great. The tech said she looks great and very healthy. It was so fun to see her feet and hands and face. She is an active little girl.

We're very excited and now things seem a lot more real since we can pick out a name and start buying stuff. Now I can imagine what she will be like, well...at least that it will be a she and not a he.

I also want to mention that I'm feeling much better now. I'm eating like normal and am finally gaining weight. I'm just now starting to show a little bit. My pants are getting tight, but nobody else can really tell since I lost so much weight in the first trimester.

Thanks for all your votes!

VOTE!!! Boy or Girl?

Monday Suzy will have an ultrasound and hopefully we will find out the gender of our baby. So in anticipation of this announcement we have created a poll on the right side of your screen where you can guess if it will be a boy or a girl. Check back on Monday evening to find out the exciting news.

To get things started: Casey thinks it is a girl and Suzy thinks it is a boy.

Savannah, GA

After taking off from Florida we stayed in Savannah, Georgia one of my favorite cities, for three days. Most of the time we had a lot of rain coming through the city as bands from Tropical Storm Fay came through the city. Luckily, there were many breaks in the rain to walk around and enjoy the city parks. In the city of Savannah, there are 21 squares throughout the downtown area of the city. This picture is of Suzy in one of those squares.

This is one of the many beautiful churches in and around Savannah.

Just outside of Savannah is the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum, dedicated to preserving the memory of the men and women that served in the Eighth Air Force during WWII. At this really cool museum, they had a B-17 waist gunner simulation where you got to shoot down German FW-190's. Suzy did really good.

This is the both of us outside the Historic Mansion that we visited in Savannah.

Just outside of the city is Fort Pulaski, a Civil War battle site. It was a really cool fort complete with huge brick walls and a moat around the fort. Behind the fort was these series of underground storage.

The drawbridge over one of the moats into the fort.

Suzy in the powder room. This room was nearly blown up during the Civil War battle, when the Union artillery landed a shell just outside of the room, prompting the Rebels to quickly surrender.

This is the wall that suffered the most of the shelling during the battle. When the fort was rebuilt they left a lot of the shell marks in it, and some of the holes still have the Union cannon balls stuck in them.

We're back

We made it back to Massachusetts safe and sound. We'll post later about our trip to Savannah and Charleston. We got our stuff moved into our new place, but it is an absolute wreck right now with boxes everywhere. We found mold growing on half our stuff when we got to our storage unit so I spend a few hours yesterday with a bucket of bleach trying to kill it all. Who knew mold loved particle board so much. I don't even think there was any standing water, it was just all the heat and humidity they had here this summer. I think the cleaning was pretty successful, but if we die of mold poisoning, you'll know what happened.

We have had to deal with serious dog odor, getting locked out once already, trying to cook dinner for the Elders who helped us move our stuff (note to self, one day is not enough time to get things put enough away to cook real food), and of course the mold and just the ordinary moving hassles. We're glad to be back and can't wait to be all settled in our new place. We'll post picture when we get a chance.

You could have fooled me

So this "hurricane" never really happened for us. First of all, it hasn't elevated to be an acutally hurricane at this point, its still a tropical storm. Secondly, it veered of the course the National Hurricane Center predicted, but followed the path predicted by the local weather people in Florida, heading more East. Because the heavy winds and rains of the storm are located to the East and North of the eye of the storm, it totally skirted us. Today was a slightly breezy and overcast day with not a drop of rain. If I hadn't know we were supposed to get a hurricane, I would have just thought it was a bummer that we didn't have beach weather today. We're VERY glad we decided not to leave considering if we had, we were thinking about staying last night in Daytona Beach which did get part of the TS.

Now the only concern is our drive to Savannah which we were planning for Thursday morning. The TS is supposed to come back to land after a brief swim in the ocean right at the Florida/Georgia border on Thursday morning. We are thinking about leaving tomorrow to avoid that, but we're not decided for sure yet. I hope it doesn't rain the whole time we're in Savannah, I've been really looking forward to it. If anybody has any travel advice on Savannah or Charleston, I would love to hear it. We will be in each city for about a day, so not a lot of time, but it should be a lot of fun.

Hurricane Party!

This afternoon Suzy and I decided that we will ride this one out. The storm does not look like it is forming and strengthening like they had forecast that it would. Fortunately things should not be too bad. This morning we spent time at Wal-Mart stocking up on some emergency supplies like snacks, Gatorade, and water. We are ready to hunker down and have a Hurricane/Tropical Storm Party. Here are some pictures of our gathered supplies and the storm clouds brewing.
We plan on taking numerous pictures during the storm and hopefully we will get some great images in the middle of a hurricane/tropical storm. Stay tuned for more updates and pics.