Adventures in Babysitting

A lady I met through a church member called me Friday night to babysit her two small children. Her regular evening sitter and nanny were both going out of town for the weekend. So I immediately thought it would be a good opportunity to make a little extra money so I could go buy baby stuff.

When we arrived, the little girl we were watching was still taking a late nap. So when she woke up to see Logan downstairs playing with me and her brother, she got scared and started crying because she had never seen him and wondered what he was doing in her basement. (Maybe she got scared because he hadn't shaved for a few days.) The funniest part of the night, though, was hearing the little boy (almost four) trying to get Logan's attention, but forgetting how to say his name. We heard him say "Lego," "Laga," and many other forms of his name that made us chuckle each time we heard it. For those of you who read my previous blog about the beach, this is the same little boy that kept calling me "Celery."

Logan and I hadn't planned anything specific that night so it worked out for him to come over with me. Thankfully, he agreed to come even though it was his day off from school and babysitting would probably not be a relaxing night with his wife. He helped me play with the kids, feed them dinner, and put them to bed which was a little tiring for me being eight-months pregnant.

As soon as the kids were in bed, we crashed on the couch and discussed what it will be like when we have kids of our own and how much energy kids will take to raise. From our experience, we learned that it wouldn't be easy, but it helps a lot when we work together and try to have fun.

Computer Problems

You might have thought we've been on vacation the past few weeks since there haven't been any posts, but we've just been really bad bloggers. How can we expect our faithful readers to continue to check our site when we don't update it?

So here is my quick attempt to let everyone know what we've been up to. Not to make excuses, but our computers have been having problems lately. The laptop needed repairs a couple of weeks ago on the fan so it wouldn't overheat in the warm, humid climate of Chicago. We sent it in to the manufacturer and surprisingly, it came back in a week all ready to go. After some frustration over that mess, we discovered that our desktop's power supply was struggling and also needed some repairs. After taking it to Best Buy, we found out that it would take another several weeks to be fixed. Both of these incidents put a damper on our blogging capabilities.

But with the laptop and the Internet back - our link to the blogging world - we can now begin a quick update. I'm on my 35th week of pregnancy and for those of you who aren't familiar with this stage, I look like I have a basketball in my stomach. And it also feels like the baby is playing with a basketball. She is growing more rapidly and there's not as much room in there as before. I'm two weeks from being full-term pregnant, which makes me more anxious to know that in a few weeks, the baby could unexpectantly come at any time. Better get prepared!

Logan has less than a month left in this quarter for school and is enjoying it so far. He's been putting more time and effort in his stories now because his professors are expecting more and his assignments will weigh heavily on his grades. But one of his professors told him he is ahead of other students in his class, and that makes us both very proud. Stay tuned for some more earth-shattering news from Chicagoland :)

Fourth of July

We traveled one suburb north to Wilmette on Monday to see their fireworks. They scheduled their fireworks on Monday, July 3rd and Evanston planned their show on July 4th so residents can experience both (and party for two straight nights) . We rode with another couple from our ward who is expecting a baby just weeks after our little one is due.

We haven't spent time in downtown Chicago yet, so on July 4th we decided to experience the Taste of Chicago. This event runs from June 30 to July 9 and is full of live entertainment, cooking demonstrations, and activities for kids and families. But most importantly you can choose to taste food from 70 different restaurant booths. And as most of you know, Logan and I enjoy to cook and prepare tasty dishes at home, but we love to taste food at different restaurants even more.

We rode the L train into the city, which seemed a little bare because of the holiday. When we arrived at Grant Park for the Taste of Chicago, we looped around the park with our eyes wide and mouths watering as we passed the food booths. We wanted to get an idea of what we had to choose from first and then decide on 11 booths to spend our tickets. As a hungry pregnant woman, it was hard to restrain myself from stomping right up to each booth and handing over my tickets for a mouth watering turkey leg or a giant size ice cream cone. I had to hold Logan back a few times as well. Everything smelled amazing!

Here are a few examples of what we were able taste: mozzarella sticks, chicken wings, lime chicken salad, jerk chicken and red beans, pad tai noodles, a frozen banana dipped in chocolate, a pineapple sundae and pulled pork (one of my favorites).

By the afternoon, we had tasted enough food and walked through enough crowds of people, so we hopped back on the train to our cozy apartment. After a nice long nap, we made dinner and watched a movie, too tired to venture out for more fire works. You're probably thinking, "Those party animals."

Wrong Ward?

Today was the fourth time we attended our new ward here in Evanston, and today was the fourth time it rained on Sunday morning. I think the Lord is trying to tell us that we moved into the wrong ward. But we really didn't have another choice, because the nearest other ward is about a 20 minute drive from Northwestern campus, which makes for an inconvenient commute.

Other than the rain, I've been pretty happy with our new ward. About half the ward is established families, and the other half is graduate students at Northwestern. Our bishop is really kind and seems to be on the ball. He gave Hillary a great blessing while setting her apart for her new calling as a ward missionary. I love Elders Quorum here, mostly because I feel like I am among peers. Well, there are one or two guys who have more than two children or who are bald whom I would not consider my peers, but other than that I feel right at home. We have great gospel discussions and everyone's insights are very keen.

Everyone, that is, except for one man who wears sunglasses and a toupee to church every week. The first week I was there, Mr. Piece opted to provoke an argument about whether God personally answers all our prayers, or whether he has angels and other helpers who listen to and answer our prayers themselves, only taking to God the problems they can't solve themselves. It was a rather tense moment because nobody wanted to say, "Shut up, you're wrong," and nobody wanted to agree with him. Off-the-wall comments are Piece's speciality, but not all of them are blasphemous, and as our teacher rightly pointed out one week as Piece raised his hand during the introduction to the lesson, "That's what I like about you, brother Piece -- always breaking the ice."

I digress. What I meant to say is that graduate business and journalism students are intelligent people who have stirring gospel discussions during Elders Quorum, and I appreciate that. The EQ meetings here are the best I've ever attended.
--LOGAN