September Catch-Up

I'm sorry to have taken a whole month to update this blog, but there have been a few things taking up my time this September.

On Sept 3rd, a couple for friends from the ward threw me a baby shower, which I discussed more fully on my baby blog. It was really nice to have so much loving support from the sisters in my ward and other friends in the area.


For Labor Day weekend, Mark and I held a party to watch the BYU football game against OU, the first BYU game of the season. We were utterly surprised to see that they really did beat OU, and it was a really exciting night. We had a large crowd, maybe about 15 people, and we served Philly Steak Sandwiches- a Dahl Family tradition for the BYU vs U of U game, but we don't even know if we will actually get that game on our cable this year. There were only a few games that we could watch, so we had to make the best of what we could get. There were also 2 other BYU games that we got on our cable TV stations out here in Boston, but I think we won 't get anymore of them. (Only if we had a satellite dish could we watch them, and we're not allowed to get a dish in our apartment building.) We can hope to see more BYU games, but it probably just won't happen.


We also went up to New Hampshire for Sunday night to visit with 2 of Mark's uncles and their wives. They came out on a trip to visit places in New England for the week, and since I had the Monday off of work, we decided that it would probably be easier for us to come visit them that time than to try to meet up for dinner on the 1 day that they decided to visit Boston...in the middle of a work week and a school night where Mark had homework. We had a lovely visit with Brad & Laura (who is also pregnant and due right around the time I'm due) and Doug & Sherri (who just had their first grandchild earlier this year). We arrived early enough on Sunday to have a dinner with them, then play a game of Quibbler (is that what it's called?) and a nice chat before bed. Then, Monday morning we went out for breakfast and Mark and I headed back home to Boston. It was supposed to be a drive just over 2 hours. It turned into about 3 hours of a drive with traffic back-ups caused by closed lanes that weren't even being worked on!!!! It bothers me when they close down a lane (especially when it brings a multi-lane road down to a one-lane one) for construction purposes that are not even being done. It seriously added about 45 minutes to our drive. Mark had homework to do, so it was a good thing that we didn't stick around too long and have to drive back through all of that during the heavy traffic hour. Sheesh!!

On Sept 19th, I took the GRE as part of my grad school application process. That is the main reason that I haven't been blogging as much over the past few weeks. I figured that if I had time to blog, then I ought to use that time to study for the GRE. Sometimes that meant that I ended not doing either, but I couldn't justify the time it took to blog and NOT study. By the end of the day, it was ok if I didn't study because I was busy doing things at work, but if I spent that time blogging, then it meant that I really wasn't doing something more pressing... Anyway, so I think I was the last person in that session to finish the test, but I didn't mind. The registration process didn't take very long, but the test being administered before mine started late, so the waiting room full of test-takers had to wait and go in one by one as the previous group finished up. I probably didn't start my test until about an hour after the time I registered to start. So, in taking my time with the instructions and tutorials, I wanted to make sure that I used the time that was allotted to me and not somehow miss something important because I was being impatient. I didn't get out of the test until about 4:35 pm.

I took the test knowing that the one school I'm applying for this year stated that admitted student's average on the GRE is about 1000 when you add the Verbal and Quantitative sections. So I was really hoping that I would be able to get about a 550 on the Verbal and something a bit higher on the Quantitative. I ended up getting only a 510 on the Verbal, but I got a 630 on the Quantitative, so I was alright with the lower score on the Verbal. Overall, I think I did just fine on the GRE. It may not be the best score that I possibly could've gotten, and I could've studied harder and longer to get a better score. However, for this year, I am satisfied and will not take it again. The only reason I will end up retaking the GRE is if I somehow will not be able to go to grad school for another 5 years, in which case the GRE score is no longer valid, or if I just don't get into a grad program at all over the next couple years and that is the only thing that I can improve to increase my chances of getting in.

Sept 26th was a busy day for me. Dershin and I are new Visiting Teaching companions, so we tried to visit 2 of our girls that morning. Then, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law threw a baby shower for me via webcams. I was not able to travel to Utah, but the family still wanted to do something for me and the baby, so they hooked up a laptop to a large tv. I will fill in with more details about that on the baby blog within the next couple of days, so if you're interested, please check over there. :0) After the shower was the General Relief Society Broadcast, and our Stake had a social with pumpkin and apple pies and apple cider. It was pretty delicious!! Int he half hour I had before the broadcast started, I called my sister-in-law Mary to talk about how she was feeling. She had just had her baby the previous day and I didn't yet get the chance to really get the details from her. (You know how sometimes people are just too tired and worn out after a baby, so I didn't want her to feel like it was a burden to talk to me if she wanted to sleep or nurse or something, but she seemed to appreciate the phone call, so I'm glad I got to talk to her briefly.) Then I went into the chapel for the broadcast.

And now, here I am at the end of September, gliding on my new chair that I got as a group gift from the Dahl Family Baby Shower, thinking about how much I time I have left before my life will be changed forever. I only have 5 weeks left of this pregnancy (according to my due date), with only 4 weeks left of work and then my mother comes into town to stay with me for 3 weeks. I know that my entire routine and schedule is going to change dramatically once the baby arrives, but I am so excited to just have a change of scene and to feel like I will be moving on into the stage of life. It will never be easy for us as things seem to be right now, but such is life. It's not meant to be easy... life is meant to challenge us so that we can grow. So...here's to the upcoming growth-spurt!! :0)