30 Weeks!

I'm feeling a little lopsided these days. *sigh*

Yay for my favorite place on earth.

A big thanks to the Hanks who made this awesome trip possible!

Pretty please don't try to guess which legs are mine and which are my husbands. Just cause his are shapelier than mine doesn't mean...well...fine. He wins the awesome legs game. I'm just fat and pregnant! It was the angle of the camera!

The trip was a major success! Complete with no injuries, Gord's Baseball of the top of the houseboat, Waterpolo Extravaganza and Jet Ski Timed Course. What would we do without that man to keep us hopping? Sitting and READING in LAKE POWELL? Don't' even think about it!

Tennis is just a bonus

The other night we got together with some friends to play tennis and eat pizza. Now, I am being liberal by saying ''PLAY''. There really isn't much playing going on unless you count the boys playing against each other. 

In fact, for some reason, tennis is much like golfing between John and I. The patience lasts for about 15 min an then it's like "Ok honey wanna pick up your ball and put it with mine?" As if that's such a nice splendid idea he just had to RELIEVE me of the burden of my incompetent-ness and non athletic talent. 

But actually what that translates to me is "Babe, I love you but you suck (bless your heart) and what I really wanna do is play some golf/tennis/basketball. And, believe it or not, even though this is 'you and I playing for fun', I really am going to be competitive and you're getting on my nerves with your 800th swing and miss. So please, let's pretend you're five years old and you can take a practice swing every so often while I REALLY play the game. Mmmmmmm-K sweetheart?''

I get it. I'm not good at Tennis (or golf) BUT...at least this time around we had John's hottie friend there who happens to be a college tennis player and MVP and who happens to have the patience of a woman and the arms of a greek god. He sat with us ''incompetent women'' and taught us how to play tennis. 

And you know the funny thing? I actually learned a thing or two and GOT BETTER. Weird.

(I must add that John ALSO looked super hot playing tennis...)

Dinner of champions!

The famous lesson. Look how good we look! Aren't you impressed?!

The requested picture...

Britt...this one is for you!

PS. I would like to note that I have finally reached the week where my stomach is poking out farther than my bum...which was REALLY hard for it to do. 

$20 was so worth it.

Sorry for the lack of posting this week. To say I've had a rough one is an understatement. BUT something happened this week that made it worth it. almost. I'll start with the not fun stuff--reminding you about the car accident I got in.

That was real fun.Then, mid week I found out that my employer is switching their insurance. Which, wouldn't be bad except for the fact that I happen to be PREGNANT and...oh....what? My doctor AND hospital aren't covered under the new insurance?!? That's awesome. I'm not attached to my doctor at all and switching mid way through a pregnancy is "no biggie" right? Right. Needless to say I have been on the phone with about 5 different insurance brokers going over the finer details of possibly switching to John's insurance or filing for a 90 day extension.Thirdly, Thursday night, while leaving work, I happened to drop my phone from my hip to the mat under my chair which busted the screen completely. Buying a new expensive phone is not what I wanted to do after spending $500 on fixing our white trash car. So...$230 later we were back in business.

I can't tell you how much I needed the long memorial weekend. Monday we decided to hang out with some friends and, while the boys watched the game, us girls decided to walk to 7-11 to get a slurpee (note my slushy cravings here). While walking down the street I happened to look down and see a bill on the sidewalk. Thinking it was only a one dollar bill I reached down to pick it up and quickly realized it was A TWENTY!! Who just finds a $20 on the sidewalk?!? ME. I DID. After whooping and hollering and waving it around cause I was so excited, my friend crossed her legs and told me to stop it or she would wet her pants. At this moment I made it a few more steps and then got laughing and realized that I might wet my pants as well. So there we were, me squatting down, her crossing her legs, both laughing our heads off and praying that we didn't wet our pants. Well...at about this moment she decided to say ''We are like Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumb!" 

Crap. That did it. Pushed me RIIIIIGHT over the edge. I, Sarah Hanks, wet my pants on the side of the road. And then I walked the rest of the way to 7-11 shamelessly. Because I REALLY wanted my slurpee. And, since I found twenty dollars it was free. 

I must say that this felt like the icing on the cake to my whirlwind of a week. And yes, that $20 was so worth it. (For the most part)

It rained today.

Great video for a gloomy, rainy, friday. I am not a sponsor for method products and i don't have any cool giveaways to go along with this (like other bloggers would do) but the mere fact that it made me laugh today has me posting it here. Cause that was hard to do today. 

A Word On Cars.

Apparently, when it comes to operating large machinery, I can't be trusted. I got in what the insurance agency calls a ''Fender-Bender'' last friday. Perfect way to start the weekend…right? Now, before you go pointing fingers and whispering let me relay how it happened. Because the first thing John asked me (after making sure I and the baby weren't physically hurt of course) was ''You PROMISE you weren't looking at your phone??!" YES! I PROMISE. I was driving downtown minding my own business when suddenly the light ahead of me turned yellow. The van in front of me probably had color-blindness issues because he SLAMMED on his breaks like it was glaringly red. I proooobbbbabbly was following a tad too close because I didn't have enough time to fully stop before I hit him. But who slams their breaks at a fresh yellow light?! 

Luckily no one was hurt. He was a nice guy and didn't call the cops so I didn't get a ticket. (That may have been because he and his drop-dead-gorgeous wife were all dressed up and heading somewhere fancy that they were in a hurry for…but i'm gonna pretend it's cause he decided to have pity on me.) 

Did I mention I was driving our lovely forest green 1995 Geo Prism and he was driving a MERCEDES? And that lovely Mercedes bumper is gonna cost more than our entire car cost us? *sigh* 

Crazy enough, John and I have a friend who performs miracles with cars and was able to get ours in the shop and fixed up in no time. We decided since there was no engine damage to just bend our hood back in place and replace the light. Thus, causing our already ghetto car to look more ghetto with a new large dent and white scratch. Ah well, what do you do. ALSO, just to note: you know you have a crapy car when the auto body shop guy makes fun of you for it. That made for a great monday morning. How do you come back from that? Answer: You DON'T. You accept it, chuckle politely while dragging out a ''yeaahhhhh'' and change the subject. 

And onn that subject…I'm PRETTY SURE that I get judged every time I drive on the freeway. It was an amazing new concept when we got our Geo Baby this winter. People TREAT me like I have an old car. Speed up waaaay fast, ride my butt for two seconds and then zip into the other lane while not making eye contact with me as if I don't exist. ''SIR! I was going 78mph! And you my friend are driving a PRIUS. How are you judging me?!" I may look old and decrepit in this Geo Prism but it's got guts ok?! I have never felt stereotyped in my whole life until we bought this car. Maybe that's healthy for me to feel what the minority feels like. I do however feel part of some group now. Like, how, while dating an ex boyfriend, I learned that motorcyclists have a language. While passing they stick out their hand and do a thumb and pointer finger salute. Apparently you're cool if you know this. Well, now i'm part of the ''Yes, this baby is still running'' group. Every time I pass someone in a car relatively like mine we do the half-grin-nod. Yeaaaaahhhh I got you. Word. And then I turn up my music REALLL loud to compensate. Can we call this ''Old Car Syndrome'' as well? Probably. Somewhat similar to ''Little Man Syndrome". 

Maybe we shouldn't' get me started on syndromes….

Here's a pic of our car instead. Happy driving. 

Sugar and Spice...

...and everything nice! WE'RE HAVING A GIRL! 

I really am trying to keep my ''I'M AWESOME CAUSE I'M PREGNANT'' posts to a minimum but I couldn't resist this one. Especially since we actually have news so there you go. We are so excited! I am sure some of you are remembering when I mentioned that John wanted a boy and I wanted a girl...let me first just say (ahem) point for Sarah...and secondly, it did take John a fraction of a second to mourn that it wasn't a boy but he is way excited now too and keeps asking me ''How are my girls today?"which is cute in the 'no-one-else-but-me-thinks-so' kind of way. 

Now, for those of you that know John, you know that he is the type of person that walks into a room and immediately has a million friends and people laughing and having a good time. So, at the doctors office the nurses are putty in his hands. It was like a production unveiling what we are having after we came out of the ultrasound room. To which was followed by a million squeals and giggles and congratulations. It's like people roll out the red carpet for him! I'm just pull the awkward smile and nod behind him as they bat their eyelashes at him and look at me like ''You don't know how lucky you are." Which, I'm sure I don't. This tactic works on waitresses just fabulously as well. I swear to you John's drink is never empty and we usually end up getting some kind of discount or free dipping sauce. Once we were lucky enough to get a SMILEY face on the receipt. Inappropriate you say? Nah. It's my husband and it works on guys as well as girls. (DON'T you dare take that the wrong way.) People just LIKE him. What can I say? When it brings us perks I can't really complain. Anyway...tangent sorry. 

We went to my sister's dance recital on Saturday and during the 2 hour poor John leans over to me and whispers, "This is going to be the story of my life for the next 18 years isn't it" Yes my dear. It is. HOORAY FOR LITTLE GIRLS!

Snow Cones and Short Shorts

Why is it that snow cone huts are continually surrounded by 15-19 year olds with perfect bodies, tan skin and short shorts? 

And WHY oh WHY have I been burdened with craving snow cones durning this blissful pregnancy? I think that surrounding myself with tan little nymphs is probably NOT the best thing for this moody, pregnant, hormonal state I'm in. *sigh*

NEVERTHELESS....

I begged John into going with me last night but, ''Sarah! There was a game on!'' so, my cute Father-in-law offered to come with me. We got there and found ourselves behind a large line of the tan breed. This included a batch of tan boys who had rather large egos. The snow cone chick handed out a snow cone to my Father-in-law after about 10 min of waiting and told him she was sorry for the wait and thanks for coming. At about this time he had taken a large lick/suck off the top of his blended snow cone. (Not with a spoon mind you, with his lips and tongue) Not more than 10 seconds later, she and he realized that, in fact, that was NOT his snow cone but one of the kids in front of us. 

Panic ensued and my Father-in-Law had the greatest idea. He got out a spoon, scooped out the top where he had licked and told the girl... 

''Hurry! Just tuck back in there, pretend you're still making it and then call out the flavor again real loud. Don't make a new one''

She being 16, tan and booty-licious herself giggled then did exactly as she was told. (wow.) The guy who's snow cone it ACTUALLY was, was one of these egotistical hormones raging type. He walked up like some hot shot, grabbed his snow cone and went back to flirting. 

At about this point my Father-in-law and I got the giggles, grabbed our snow cones and headed back to the car. We laughed our butts off the WHOLE way home. Just picture that snotty high school kid going to town on his snow cone that had been previously licked by a 60 year old man with great hair. 

JUSTICE I TELL YOU! Pure justice. Who cares if I'm fat and white, you just ate someone else's saliva!

Kitchen Kitchen Where Have You Been?

In celebration of our new kitchen finally being functional I made dinner last night. (Note: functional does not mean completely put together looking awesome. Functional means we plugged in the microwave and oven and cleared off an inch of counter space.) And since I was pretty proud of myself, I took pictures to prove it. While John chuckled of course. 


BBQ Chicken Salad Extraordinare!


I do this thing where I buy rotisserie chickens and pick the chicken off and shred it. I don't love boiling chicken and trying to dispose of the greasy water so this works fabulous for me. Plus, for around $7, it provides two meals worth of shredded chicken!

John was so proud. I took some to work the next day for lunch and got made fun of for putting BBQ sauce on a salad. Who hasn't had a BBQ chicken salad?!?! Weirdo.

Just Because.

Have a good weekend everyone!

My New Favorite Thing.

I think that my new favorite thing about being pregnant is when people at work comment on my eating choices. Take yesterday for example. I happened to be making some Ramen Noodles in the break room and a coworker came in and POINTED at my bowl. 

Pointed. 

And stared. 

And gave me that ''seriously you're eating that'' face and then said ''That's about the worst thing you could eat for your baby.'' What's a person supposed to respond to that comment? 

A. I don't work super close with you so why are you pointing fingers at me?

B. I just moved into a house and my kitchen currently looks like this: 

 

C. I BROUGHT SOME STRAWBERRIES TO GO WITH IT OK?

D. Being pregnant is HHARRRRRD <---- Insert whine here 

Please don't fault me if on my way out the door I thought, "Oh i'll just grab these ramen noodles for lunch instead of going to Wendy's for the umpteenth time while we've been kitchen-less the past 3 months."

So guess what? THIS IS WHAT I HAD FOR BREAKFAST THIS MORNING. SO THERE. I feel good about it. Baby feels good about it. WE'RE ALL HAPPY. Sodium and Sugar. My two favorite things. 

Odd or Even.

I'm pretty certain this conversation happened in the car the other day between John and I:

(Head's up, no judging allowed!)

Driving down State Street trying to find a paint store...

John: Try to catch a number on one of those buildings.

Me: We're still like 3 blocks away. We're fine.

John: I know but catch a number for me will ya?

Me: Why?

John: Because! Then I know what side of the street the store is located!

Me: (Confused/pondering face) Whhhatt?? You can tell which side of the street the store is on just by looking at a number 3 blocks away???

John: (Looking at me incredulously like i'm some kind of scientific experiment that he happened to be lucky enough to marry)   Are you serious?   (Now a laugh bubbles up and out and explodes as he throws his head back)   Sarah!! How long have you lived in Utah? Odd number addresses are on one side and even's are on the other! So if you snag a number for me then I know what side of the street the store is located! 

At about this point he adds in his famous ''I love you'' Which translates into: ''Bless your dumb little heart. You make me laugh alllllll the time.''

Instead of being ticked this just made me get a big smile and realize how much easier my future address-finding is going to be! Hooray. Here's to Utah city planning!

You know you live in Utah...

When you see THIS sticking out of someone's truck in the parking lot at Zupa's during lunch! How incredibly awesome is this scene? 

Annnnd...I have to admit you know you've got a little white-trash in you when you take a picture of this scene and text it to your mom and sisters like it's the best thing you've seen in weeks. 

cause...maybe it IS.

Music makes me happy

Whoever reads this - be aware! - you are entering into a contract with me that you will not tell John that I'm writing this. 

This post is all about how cool my husband is and how cool his new hobby is. He has recently brought back ''jam sessions'' with a friend. When I brag this off he gets mad saying "Sarah! Jam-sessions are so high school so don't go telling people I do that!" But...here's the thing. I think it's awesome! And there is nothing I love more than sitting there listening to them jam. 

Let me add a mental picture for you. Both of them lounging on the couch, watching the Miami Heat game WHILE singing and playing the guitar. Is this even possible? I wondered the same thing until I watched them do it for 2 straight hours. Maybe men CAN multi-task...

Did I mention they are actually pretty good? Here's a little taste for ya...

Me Love Baby

Sorry for the super long post but I feel like I need to document my feelings about this pregnancy thing. It's hard to even know where to start. I guess it begins with when John and I decided to start trying. I'm what we call a slight-rebel. (A slight-rebel entails things like streaking and skinny dipping and sneaking out: all of which I was known to do in High School. Shhh…don't tell my parents. They are the conservative sort.) So being married and of the LDS faith, slight-rebelness means not having a baby a year after you get married. Not that that's a bad thing…it's just a common thing. And I prefer being different. 

I had it in my head that I wanted to 1. Be done with school before I had a baby and 2. Use my degree in a good job for at least a year. I thought these were reasonable wishes. John was ready to hold me to these wishes TO THE DAY. He was ready to start our little family about a year before I was. My time for excuses was up last May and John and I had many talks about if we were ready. I pushed back and pushed back until one day at work it hit me really hard that we needed to be ready. I took a few quiet minutes at my desk and let it sink in. Finally I wasn't scared anymore. I felt like it was an honorable responsibility to take on. It was a quiet personal moment that nobody else knew about but something that I really needed. And thus the trying began. 

And more trying... 

And even more trying... 

I think this has been one of the greatest emotional roller coasters I've ever been on. Drill Team in high school - you got nothin on me anymore! For some reason it wasn't working for us. Of course when you are trying you begin to notice pregnant women everywhere. A few of our friends announced their happy news and told us that they practically blinked and got pregnant. What was wrong with us? What was wrong with me? I felt super lonely and misunderstood. Crawling back in bed with John after seeing that single line on the pregnancy test morning after morning was about the worst thing in the world. 

After months of trying we decided to distract ourselves with searching for houses. Maybe a baby wasn't right for us right now. We decided to enjoy being DINKs (double-income-no-kids) and take advantage of the housing market. I will say there were moments of bitterness. Definite bitterness. (I thought we were ready!) but my mom kept telling me to take solace in the fact that we were doing our best and living God's commandments and that's all we could do.

We started putting a few offers on short sales and tried to not get our hopes up. We figured we weren't in a hurry to move so short sales were great. Plus…being someone that is slightly afraid of big commitment, dragging out a short sale actually made me feel better. Well, our luck with babies wasn't great but apparently our luck with short sales was! We heard back on one of our offers in 3 months. Which I guess is pretty unheard of. So there we were. Confused and nervous since we planned on having offers out there for a long time. We finally agreed that this was too good of a deal to pass up and decided that, as long as we could tear out the atrocious tile, we wanted the house. 

And I guess you know the story from here. Right in the middle of tearing our new home apart I came home from work and took a test. It was positive in seconds. I stared at it blinking not believing my eyes. I started to laugh cry by myself on the pot and couldn't wait till John got home. The first thing he said to me after I showed him was ''DON'T YOU LIE TO ME SARAH'' What a lovely relationship we have! Ha we are too used to relentlessly teasing each other. 

Going to the doctor a week later told us that we were already 9 weeks along! What? I had been pregnant for 9 WEEKS AND DIDN'T KNOW? WHO DOES THAT?

I WASN'T EVEN TAKING MY PRENATALS!!! (insert initial new mom panic and heavy breathing here_____ ) 

Literally I thought the doctor was going to say ''Are you on something? You're not pregnant'' But instead he chatted it up with John as he squirted cold jelly on my stomach and up came the image above. At this time John started squeezing my ankle - HARD - and i was forced to interrupt their mindless chatter to say ''IS THAT OUR BABY??'' to which he laughed and said yep. and I said back ''SO, YOU'RE SAYING WE REALLY ARE PREGNANT??'' 

And yes. We really are. Still, I don't believe it. 

I know that 10 months isn't long to some people and I'm not about to say that we deserve pats on the back for trying for "so long". But I am saying that, to us, 10 months felt like 10 lifetimes and that this little baby inside me feels like our little miracle. I am so scared and so excited and feel so lucky to be a part of something as amazing as creating life. 

Can you believe I'M GROWING A HUMAN?






ps. my heart stopped beating for a minute when I heard that tiny heart beat. Can I get that on repeat please?

Days that I have nothing to do at work...

...Are hard for me. All I do is sit and think of 40 some-odd things I could be doing at home that are way more productive than browsing pinterest or chatting with the 5 people around me.


Although....there are rare moments when boredom turns into slap-happiness. Like when we just sat and sniffed as hard as we could to see who's nostrils suck in and stay that way, or when we found this and couldn't stop laughing:

I don't care if you're not a Harry Potter fan, that is dang funny.








PS. I'm a ''one-nostril-suck-in-er''. For the record.

It's Been Awhile...

Hellloooooo world! I have sat here for 30 min trying to decide what to write and how to ''re-enter'' the blog world with this one post. Frankly, I don't think there's anything TO say other than...yeah...it's been awhile. Any forced explanation is awkward because in all honesty there isn't an explanation. One day I just stopped blogging. And now one day I'm just starting again. So, without further ado...here are a bunch of photos that explain what we've been up to lately!




BIG THING #1: We purchased our first home! As exciting as this sounds, the excitement quickly wore off when we realized that our ''tearing-out-the-atrocious-tile'' job became ''lets-gut-the-whole main-floor'' job. Go ahead and ask John how many times he has A.) wanted to divorce me B.) Wanted to become Harry Potter and Apparate to a different country or C.) has threatened that ''If I add ONNNEEE MORE project he's just gonna loose it!'' I think you're answer should be D.) ALL OF THE ABOVE. Anyway, here are some pictures of our house's transformation

 The Hideous Tile Mentioned Above. (How could you NOT tear this out right? Did I mention it was in all the bathrooms, the mudroom, the laundry room, the entire kitchen AND entry way!?) Barf.

 Here is a before shot of the kitchen with the previous owner's stuff still there

 The basement. Just imagine John's ping pong table here because supposedly it'll be his man cave.

Moving Day!

Day 1 of demolition. Lucky for me I have a burly group of men at my fingertips!

This scary picture is what became of the tile when we tried tearing it out. It took a LOT of man power plus some jack hammers to get this disgusting stuff out. I may or may not have had a few overwhelmed breakdowns because of this mess. 

The tile ended up staining the walls orange in places so I talked John into painting the entire main floor white. John has learned so many new talents along this house journey! 

I'm a sucker for White-on-White kitchens so John agreed to paint the cabinets white.

Our new beautiful tile that makes me happy inside. It was soooo worth it!

Our beautiful new flooring. This is in the kitchen and entry way and then the tile is in the mudroom, laundry room and bathrooms.

New countertops! Love the color. It was a discounted slab of granite and a bit of a gamble but I couldn't be happier with how it looks. (phew!)

And there you have it. That's where we are at this point. Stay tuned for when we move in and I'll post pictures of everything fully completed!

BIG THING#2: We are having a baby! We found this out during the middle of this whole house process. What a little ray of sunshine during this mess! I am super excited and super freaked out at the same time. Anyone that has any advice for Pre-mom Jitters be my guest in sharing! I'm 13 weeks along and counting down the minutes till we find out what we're having. John wants a boy and I want a Girl. - GO FIGURE. :)