Home Theater System is Complete...almost

Do you remember me posting about getting a custom-made surround sound system? Well, the weekend of Fathers' Day Phil brought over our completed speakers. Since then, I think we've had about 4 movie parties so Mark can show off his new toys. It's been really fun to have them...and to watch the guys get so excited when they feel the bass from the subwoofer. Actually, we don't have it totally completely installed because Phil had made a mistake on the two back speakers' wooden frames. He put them together, but he didn't finish them to be all nice, but he brought them over so that we could use them until he finishes their replacements. He'll just redo the wooden frame and then take these back to place the electronic parts in the new perfect frames. Also, in a couple more weeks Phil will need to take back the ones he brought over so that he can put on the final glossy coat. Apparently the lacquer need to cure for 3 weeks before the final polish could be applied.

Mark also bought a media cabinet to put all the electronic stuff in. We were planning on putting the receiver under our TV stand, but it was too tall. So, the only logical thing to do would be to get something where we can stack everything, and have a door to close it so that the baby(ies) wouldn't be able to push all the nifty buttons. Mark put it all together, and it looks really nice... what do you think?

This is what they looked like when Phil was still painting them...

before they parts were put inside.

This is the "hidden" finished subwoofer. We keep it behind the couches in the corner,

so you don't notice it much.

And this is the system all set up and ready to go.

And the final product... and yes, we are watching "The Office."

So far, we have been very impressed, and we are so glad we have them. This was definitely an early Christmas for us!!

It's Official

So the quick and skinny of it all is that Mark and I found out this morning that we're having a boy!! Go to http://thelittledahl-ling.blogspot.com/ for more detailed information!!

My Marky, the Smarty-Pants!!

Ok, so I don't really brag much, but this is something that was super-exciting to us...which I guess shows that it doesn't happen very often, therefore I need to spread the news now that it has!

Mark's been working very hard through law school, and it's been very tough on him...as we expected it to be. However, after each semester he is constantly checking to see if his grades are up because he never really knows when they will be posted. On Friday, after one of his many trips to the school's website, he saw something that looked very unusual. One section said that his grades and GPA weren't available, but if he scrolled down there were grades posted. Looking at the grades, he thought that it was just some sort of computer glitch because he simply didn't believe it. He called me on my lunch break to tell me about it, but he was trying to not get excited in case that wasn't really what his grades were.

About 1 hour before I left work, he called me to tell me that it was time to go celebrate because he got an email from the school's registrar stating that his academic performance was exceptional for the past year and that his GPA qualified him for a Paul J. Liacos Scholar Award...meaning that he was in the top 10% of the second academic year. I'll bet you're wondering what his grades were by now, aren't you?

Mark had 4 classes last semester (plus 1 credit of the law journal which didn't give a grade) and he received 3 A's and 1 A+. That makes for a 4.06 GPA for the semester, which raised his cumulative GPA from a 3.43 to a 3.59. He was so ecstatic...as was I!! He's never had a 4.0 in all of his college career...technically he STILL never got a 4.0 because he got BETTER than a 4.0 this semester! Woo hoo!!! Go Mark!!

Ok, so we're excited that he did this well this past year, but we're still not sure if it will actually help him find a job in this year's law market...although we know it couldn't hurt! He is now a 3L, and in law-school terms, that's a really hard time to find a job if you didn't already find one. Knowing that the market out there is still very bad, we're just hoping that this will somehow show firms that he really is a good catch because he can show that his grades have been steadily improving throughout his time in law school. We have a little more confidence that he will be able to make something work out, but that doesn't really say much. We continue to pray for the Lord's help...and we're SO grateful for this blessing in our lives. We'll just have to wait and see where it takes us.

Memorial Day and More

If I don't write something down here now, I'll never remember to post it. Sorry there are no pictures, even though I did take quite a few on Memorial Day. For Memorial Day last week, Mark and I decided fairly last minute to go visit the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial in Vermont. We knew that living in Boston meant that we were pretty close to it, and that if we didn't do it at least once in the 3 years of living here, we'd be kicking ourselves. We could've gone to New York City, but we figured that no matter where we lived, we would still want to make a trip to NYC, but that was not necessarily the case for Vermont. Mark was happy to be able to count one more state that he had visited.

On the way to the memorial, we saw signs for a Vietnam War Memorial at one of the state visitors' centers at a rest stop. We figured this would be a fitting thing to do on Memorial Day, so we stopped to take a look around. They had a huge plaque of all the people who served and died in the Vietnam War from the state of New Hampshire...or was it Vermont? Either way, I think there were about 72,000 names from that state alone, and there was even an addendum to the large plaque because there were names that weren't available at the time the original memorial was constructed. While looking around, we happened upon a few Jehovah's Witnesses who got to talking with us and asked us several questions about our beliefs...mainly about the afterlife. We had a nice conversation, and then we went on our way. The drive was nice and peaceful, the weather was beautiful (and windy), and it was just nice to go for a drive and enjoy the beauty of New England. We also got to feel the peaceful spirit that was there at the memorial site and talking to the missionaries who run the visitors' center there. After we got home, Mark just felt like he really didn't want to be stuck inside, so we invited our neighbors to go out to eat at a Mexican restaurant that we've been wanting to try for a while.

The rest of the week seems a little hazy to me now. I remember feeling like we were just busy doing something everyday, but I can't really remember what we did. I do remember that I went to our Girls' Night which was a clothing/things swap with the other ladies in the ward. (That was mainly fun for the socializing aspect than it was for the things I picked up to bring home.) I remember going to see an 8th grade musical production of "Once on This Island" because a friend from our ward was the director and music teacher at the school.

And at some point between the last post and now the following has happened: I registered to take the GRE on Sept. 19th, which means that I will need to make sure that I get plenty of study in (but blogging is so much more fun); Mark's 3:03 certification came through, which means that he will now get to do some more fun things in the courtroom during his internship- like make bail arraignments, motions, and even prosecute in the court if any of his cases get that far; I started wearing maternity clothes because even my big pants cut into me even without a belt (I still don't feel like I'm showing a whole lot, but maternity pants are much more comfortable with a sensitive belly); and Mark's been working on getting things put together to apply for clerkships for after he graduates.

I'm fairly certain that things will get hectic and stressful when the summer ends: school starts up again, Mark will be going through another recruiting season, I'll be preparing to have a baby, having mothers come to visit and help with the newborn, securing logistics for a babysitter for going back to work, and anything else I didn't think to mention. For now we're enjoying the time that we get to spend together in the evenings without Mark doing homework. I feel like life is good to us, and we're just pluggin' along.