c'era una volta...

I was fairly certain that Spartacus was going to come before the 30 th . I figured he’d come some time after the 15 th . I had a plan to labor at home (or work, I guess) as long as possible, and once at the hospital use the birthing balls, walking, etc, eventually get an epidural, and have this baby. But I hadn’t written it out or even finished packing a bag, and that turned out to be okay because my birth plan wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Sunday the 9 th we had everything ready for work Monday—lunches packed, workout loaded on computer, and we went to bed. I woke up just after midnight, felt some wetness in spurts (not like the movies) and thought my water had broken, so we quickly finished packing and drove to the hospital. We got into triage around 1:15 am, and they confirmed that I was “grossly ruptured” and we would be having a baby one way or another in the next 24 hours. We were moved to labor and delivery—Spartacus had not dropped yet, and they were concerned th...

When Alex and I met, we were 18 and babies, and he said he wanted to be married for six years before kids. We’ll be two months short of that, but this baby has been in the plans for a long time, and in spite of silly things teenage boys say, we both wanted this to happen much sooner. (Alex wants me to clarify that we got married 4.5 years after we met, lest you think we are younger than we are) One of the earlier pictures, spring 2008, a year after we met. We did start out waiting. Realistically, I didn’t have health insurance that functioned in the state I lived in for the first few years we were married. We are both extremely stubborn and opinionated (and I realize that unless you have previously lived with me you may think Alex is the only opinionated one but…he’s not) and we needed to just be Alex and Liza. Ultimately, we both accomplished a lot in those first years we were married that we both needed to accomplish. I would never trade that. Somebody told me a few ye...

Thursday, Alex told me before going to bed that he was going to get up first thing in the morning to watch Tiger playing in Dubai. Like, right when the alarm went off (5 am) he'd jump out of bed and run downstairs to watch. So, we go to bed, and sometime in the night Alex starts talking to me, kisses my cheek, feels my forehead because he's worried I have a fever after kissing my cheek, talking the whole time. Gets out of bed, grabs his jeans and is walking around to the door when suddenly he looks down at his phone and says, "Wait, didn't the alarm just go off?" I said, "no." And he apologized and went back to sleep. A couple of other times he jumped up and grabbed the phone, and I told him to go away at one point. Come 5 am when the alarm went off, he did NOT jump right out of bed and watch Tiger. He took his sweet time. The best part is, I was still half asleep the first time he woke up, and didn't think anything was weird because it's fairly ...

So, I got a job. My very first full time job. Actually I've been at it for a while. This week is, in fact, my fifth week if you count my first two weeks of full time training. I am a billing specialist at a web hosting company. BlueHost. Except not really BlueHost because I am working for JustHost. It was really a cruel trick of them to play on me. Although not so cruel since I don't think I ever even applied for the job. I had no idea what the company was before they called me for an interview. (Thank goodness they emailed me something to do so I could google them and find out) So I went to my interview and didn't even know what job I was interviewing for. Yeah. I got the job. They liked me. They even miraculously gave me the perfect shifts --Monday through Friday 6am to 2:30pm. You can question my sanity, but we go to bed at 9 and get up at 5 and it works. Plus I have the whole afternoon to live my life and do things like write blogs and read books and other things. It...

So, Alex and I really like our new ward. We tried the family one for a couple of weeks but the strange Jerusalem high tech travelogue otherwise known as Sunday School was a bit too much for us. We decided instead upon the married student ward. It's great, it's on top of things, I had a visiting teaching assignment before we were even officially in the ward. But it's odd. A "married student ward" is an odd concept at times. Like, if you're not cuddly enough in Sacrament Meeting the member of the Stake Presidency might get up and tell everyone that they need to go home, look their spouse in the eyes, and tell them the reasons they love them. Or if you don't hold hands walking to or from the chapel, chances are people will give you funny looks. Unless you have a baby preventing you, which is likely. (Alex thought you got kicked out of these wards once you had kids...he was very wrong) We have a good time analyzing clothing styles. I complain about the fac...

So, I've been told that since I'm married I really need a blog. That and I haven't updated my blog since I came home from my mission in December. It's been a while. So, basically, I'm MARRIED!!! Here's the scoop: Alex and I met in early 2007, our freshman year at BYU. I was in the Cougareat one Friday after Music 101 with Alison and the boys from our ward who were also in Music 101, and our friend Tracy was sitting a few tables away with this really good-looking boy . Naturally, I was curious, and I walked over to find out who in the world this boy was. I sat at their table and talked to them for about five minutes and then it was time for people to head to class. Next run-in: Tracy was avoiding Alex's roommate who was coming to visit her during visiting hours and so I went with her to visit Alex, because obviously his roommate would never expect her to be there. Well, Alex had the book The Three Musketeers on his shelf. Which obviously meant he must...

Oh mamma, I don't even know what to write about, it's been a whole new week but I don't think I am capable yet of comprehending that this is the last day. Okay, so I am, but I still feel like everything is normal and that I'm going to be here forever except that everytime that I see people I make them cry. miiii I still hope that by some miracle the camera or at least the memory cards are still returned to me, but there are so many more important things that I just can't be sad about it forever. Luckily I have been blessed with lots of companions who take lots of pictures. By the way, that's really funny that Tommy is in Anziano Grigg's ward and has been forever. When I met Anz Grigg he said to ask Tommy if he knew his family because he lives in his mission, and I forgot to ever ask. Oops. So let's see what has happened this week... On Wednesday we went to the Vittoriano. WOW. It has a terrace, and you have to pay 7 euro to take the elevator up there...