I kept forgetting it was Friday.

I wore my first maternity outfit today. It was kind of fun. Ah the little things. I finished up the 2nd option on Fisch this morning. Mr & Mrs Fisch came in at 11:15. They liked the 2nd option and decided to go with it. They decided on the finished also. English Figured Sycamore with accents of stained and dyed madrone burl. These are both exotic veneers. It is going to be beautiful!!
I made meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and steamed green beans for dinner. It was good. We watched the Bad News Bears. It was ok. Time for bed. My back is killing me.
-Until tomorrow.

Hook'em Horns!!

We just got done watching the UT vs. USC Rose Bowl game. Yes, Ellie Mae just watched an entire football game!! Our small group came over to our house and watched. It was a really good game. I love Texas!!

Today was my first 8 hour day back to work. It actually wasn't that bad. I was hungry all day. I worked on Far's office. We did their bathroom a couple of months ago and they are ready to start their office. I did 2 options so it took most of the day. Wednesday is over and the weekend is almost here!!!

-Until tomorrow

Back to the Rat Race!

It was only a little hard to get up this morning. I could have slept another hour though.
I was a little afraid to go to work because I knew there would be germs everywhere! "Senior designer" sounded like death before I left for vacation and Chica sounded awful on the phone on Thursday. There was no telling who else got sick while I was gone. I cleaned my phone, my keyboard, my mouse and my desk with alcohol. I could tell that "Senior designer" had sat at my desk last week. Yuck!! Our office manager told me that I had forgotten to turn in my timesheet before I left for vacation and if I wanted my paycheck to get him the timesheet ASAP. I got that to him first thing and got my paycheck! Happy about that!!!
I worked on Rich job. "Senior designer" has priced this job as cheap as he possibly can. I will bet you money we will loose money on it. He takes my pricing sheet and just drops numbers for certain people and then at the end of the job he wonders why we lost money and didn't make anything on the job. I like to keep these cost sheets as proof and show him at the end of the job that he doesn't need to be pricing the jobs AT ALL!! He had an appointment with Mr. Rich at 3pm. I left the office at 2:25pm for my baby doctor apointment at 2:50pm.
We got to hear the heartbeat again! It has slowed down but is louder than the first time. It is just so amazing to hear. They also took blood for some test. I can't remember exactly what it was, J knows, but they said that no news will be good news...so I hope they don't call. We also scheduled the Ultrasound. It will be on January 23nd!!! 3 weeks!! We will know if it is a boy or a girl!!!!
Tonight I made grilled cheese sandwiches and oven baked fries. Ooo toughy huh? I'm just a baby cook! It will get better!!
J has been playing with his XBOX 360 that I got him for Christmas!!! He is having so much fun! Every now and then I hear him giggle because he has figured out something new that it does. It turns out that it is a media center. He can pull pictures from his laptop wirelessly. We were looking at pictures from vacation on the big screen. It was actually really neat.
Here are a few pics from vacation...ENJOY!!

J & Ellie Mae at the Train Station in Cottonwood, AZ!!

J & Ellie Mae at the Grand Canyon

J at the Grand Canyon

Ellie Mae at the Grand Canyon

It was REALLY cold at the Grand Canyon!
-Until tomorrow

LAZY DAY!!

J and I slept in this morning. I actually slept!!
My new year's resolution this year is...(drum roll please) to cook dinner most nights. I have been married for over 7 years and I just don't cook. J & I fend for ourselves or go out to eat. With the pregnancy I'm just sick of the same old thing and I'm sick of all the bad things!! So the solution is to start cooking and get good at it!! The only downfall to it all is I don't have a dishwasher. I know, I'm a kitchen designer, and I don't have a dishwasher...pitiful! The house that we are renting does not have one. It has a lame trash compactor instead, which I don't use. So, I got a slightly used dishwasher off of one of my jobs at work. It is sitting in the garage right now. All that needs to be done is...the trash compactor uninstalled and THROWN OUT!! and demo the drawers next to the trash compactor to make the hole big enough for the dishwasher. There is a plumber/electrician at work that has agreed to do the hook up FOR FREE! It's just all a matter of doing it. Pregnancy really disrupts the regular routine of your life. You just get so darn tired or so darn iritable that you can do any of the normal stuff you used to do. So poor J, my most awesome husband has to to a majority of the work. I have him so run down from all the stuff he has to do for me that he is worn out, burned out and tired!! Anyway, I know that the dishwasher project will get done before the baby!!
So, back to my new year's resolution...I have made a list of what I am preparing for dinner every night of this week. I also made a grocery list!! Usually when I decide to cook the grocery bill is insane. We only spent $100, and that includes my breakfasts and lunches...and J's snacks!! So for dinner I made Mexican Casserole and salad. It was really good. I was impressd with myself!! The key question is did J like it? He said it just needed a little seasoning...oh yeah, I forgot about that stuff!!
J & I also had to go buy a present for our nephew All Star "Z". It is his 11th birthday. We got him a gift certificate to Build a Bear. We all went over to R(J's brother) & E's(my sister-in-law) house and had cake. Turns our All Star "Z" spiked a fever 45 minutes before the party. Great contagious germs. Anyway it was a nice family birthday party!!!
J & I are both facing reality that we have to get back to the real world tomorrow. Why does vacation go by so fast?
-Until tomorrow

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I didn't get to blog our entire vacation because I couldn't get on the internet for the rest of the week. We were out in the middle of nowhere. We stayed in Camp Verde for 2 more days. On day 3 we rode the Verde Vally Railroad. It was really beautiful. It was exhausting though. I rode in the out door car for the 1st half, my eyes were tired from squinting in the sun. The train left at 1pm and we didn't get back until 5pm. J and I got some dinner and went back to our hotel. We watched tv and relaxed. On day 4 we got up the next day and went to Jerome, AZ. It is an old copper mining town. It has a population of maybe 500. It was a neat little quaint town. We then went to a fish hatchery. Then to Sedona. J & I walked around uptown Sedona and went into all the neat little shops and had lunch too. That night we went to a cowboy dinner in Cottonwood, AZ. J & I took old west photos. They came out really cute. The dress I picked out made me look really pregnant or really fat. The dinner was good!! We had beans, baked potatoe, BBQ beef, applesauce and spice cake on a tin plate. The lemonade was in a tin cup. The show was cute too. A bunch of cowboys singing old cowboy songs like Tumbleweed and Ghostriders in the sky. The only part I didn't like was the wooden benches. I nearly died sitting on them for 1 1/2 hours. J & I slept in the motorhome tonight. It was really hard to sleep in the motorhome being pregnant. It killed my back and the bed was just too small for J & I and all my pillows. On day 5 we drove up to Williams, AZ. We drove to the Grand Canyon south rim. It was beautiful! But as the sun went down it got really cold! Wind blowin' cold. We drove back to the RV in the dark. We ate dinner at a 50s diner called Cruisers Diner on Route 66. It was really cold that night it hurt. J & I stayed at a hotel again. On day 6 we got up and ate breakfast at another 50s diner called Route 66 diner. Then we were off on our way home. We drove most of the day. Excuse me, J drove most of the day. We stopped in 29 Palms, CA. We left Williams at 10am and got to 29 Palms at 6pm. We stopped along the way and went to the Grand Canyon Caverns in Seligman, AZ. That took about 2 hours. It was really interesting. An elevator took us 21 stories down, 210 feet. It was warmer in the caves than outside. The reason it is called the Grand Canyon Caverns is it has a tunnel that ends at the Grand Canyon. At the end of the tour they turned out the lights and you couldn't see you hand in front of your face. And everything was formed around 345 million years ago...blah, blah, blah, whatever. When we got to 29 Palms we had dinner and J & I looked for something to do. We played Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture...J won(as usual). On day 7 we headed home. We left at 8am and got home at 11am. We unpacked the motorhome and got lunch. We washed clothes and put everything away and did nothing for the rest of the evening. I got addicted to this new game called Aloha Solitaire. We did nothing exciting for New Years. We went to sleep at 12:15am. This morning we got up and went to the Auto Show at the convention center. It was really good exercise for me. I was exhausted afterward. J & I played with his Christmas present, the new Xbox 360 for the rest of the day. We made a fire and I have played so much Aloha Solitaire that I am sick of it. Tomorrow is our last day of vacation. Boo. Then it's back to real life.
-Until tomorrow