Ally's Countdown

I have now posted a widget that shows the countdown to Ally's estimated date of arrival (April 27th). You can view it on the right-hand column of the blog.

Now we''ll just have to wait and see if she's an early bird, right on time, or fashionably late!

Christmas 2008-a memorable one

We spent the week of Christmas in KY visiting Ben's family. At full capacity, we had 9 adults, 2 children, and 5 dogs inside the house. I should note that the 5 dogs were of the large variety and enjoyed being with the people, so maybe it was more like having 16 people all together. All in all, we had a good time. We did a lot of sitting around, reading, eating, talking, playing games, and sleeping. However, once Christmas Eve came, several of us did a lot more sleeping and a lot less eating than we had originally planned.

That was when Christmas 2008 will forever be known in the Evans house as the Christmas that the 24-hr stomach flu hit. It all started when we got up on Christmas Eve morning and we learned that Ben's mom had been up most of the night with various digestive system issues affecting both ends. We were all like, "aw man, hope she feels better," and "hope no one else gets sick." We sure enough, as Christmas Eve wore on, 4 more of us got sick: Ben's dad, Ben's sister, Ben, and me. Yeah, it was not particularly fun, as from mid-afternoon Christmas Eve until early Christmas morning, Ben and I took turns worshiping the porcelain god and/or riding the porcelain bus in one bathroom, while Ben's sister and dad took over another bathroom. Luckily everyone felt mostly better by Friday morning, and no other family members have gotten sick so far.

I will say that while having a stomach bug is no fun, it probably did curtail some of the holiday weight gain that might have happened ordinarily. Plus, it sure does make for a good story that will be talked about for many years to come!

Ahh, semester break!

Yep, Ben and I are both officially now on semester break. We have both decided that we are not doing any more work for the remainder of 2008. Ben turned in all his grades a couple days ago, and my semester grades are now officially posted to my online transcript. I passed all my classes . I will say, I really didn't feel like that was going to be a total guarantee this semester, as my classes weren't particularly easy. My Physiology final was especially difficult I thought (I definitely had a few "oh crap, I should have studied this better" moments when I was doing the renal physiology section of the final). But getting a Pass (aka a "P") is all I, or anyone else, cares about in terms of class grades. As we grad students say, "P's get degrees."

So now, Ben and I are taking advantage of our vacation time by catching up on sleep, pleasure reading, housework, registering for baby items (more on that later), and getting ready for our trip to KY to see his family next week. It is so nice to have relaxed lives again, even if it is only for a couple weeks.

New Blog

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are also expecting a baby in April-a little boy. As such, they have started a blog called "Live from Texas." I have now included their blog in my list of favorite links.

Home stretch

We're almost there. I just have 1 more final tomorrow morning. Ben is giving his first final right now. We are both looking forward to this weekend.

It's that time of the year again

No, I'm not talking about the holiday season, I'm referring to final exams (yuck). I have a biomechanics final tomorrow, motor control on Wednesday, an annotated bibliography due on Thursday, and physiology is Friday. Ben is now on the other side of the table, as he is now writing and grading finals. I still think that when you have one spouse taking finals and one spouse giving finals, they should cancel each other out. Or at the very least, his intro physics final and my biomechanics final could cancel each other out. Well, just in case his chair and my biomechanics prof don't agree with my reasoning, I suppose I should get back to studying.

Sigh.

Happy birthday Isaac!

I am sending a shout-out to our nephew Isaac who turned 5 years old today. Big-kid kindegarten, here he comes!

Highland cows

Ben and I were reminiscing about our honeymoon in Scotland 5 1/2 years ago, and we were wondering when, if ever, we will get to go back. We were on Google Images, looking at some fun Scotland pictures, and I remembered that they had Highland Cows in Scotland. So I am posting some fun pics of Highland cows from Google Images. If we do ever go back to Scotland, I'm going to have to find a friendly herd so that I can pet them and take some pics of my own. I do wonder, how do they see with all that hair in their eyes???