Money Comes and Goes!!

So, there are a couple of exciting bits of news to share.

First, Mark had applied for a PIP (Public Interest Project) Grant of $4000 and was placed as #2 on the waiting list. One of the requirements to qualify for the grant was to have an un-paid (or at least very low-paid...I think) internship for a public practice for the summer. All of the people who were awarded the grant had to have a job lined-up by the end of classes. Mark already has his internship with the Middlesex County DA's office, so he's already set for that part. Well, there were apparently enough students who did not have that job, so Monday we heard that they awarded Mark one of those grants instead! So, we will be getting a little extra money this summer, which is very exciting since we were really hoping for that grant! He worked really hard, even spent his own money to donate items, and spent several hours volunteering in order to qualify.

Secondly, I know some people (including our parents, and maybe some of my siblings) may roll their eyes at us when I tell them about this next bit of news, but with that said, I hope you realize that I already understand the cons against what I'm about to tell you. (Does that make it sound really scary, or what? =P )

This past weekend, Mark and I designed and "purchased" a custom-made 7.1 surround sound home theater system. A friend from our ward, Phil Liddiard, is going to custom build it to our specifications, and it is going to be the top of the line quality for a small fraction of retail price. Phil is able to do all of this for cost of parts, and he's really excited to do it for us. He's done a few systems already for friends and family in Utah which he was pretty proud of. He is at the Berkelee College of Music in a sound production/engineering program...so the sound is a big deal to him. The little details of sound in music and in movies that he hears are things that most of us don't even recognize; so when he says it's going to sound amazing, you take his word for it!! He knows his stuff! He came over with several sketches of different types of systems, price ranges of what they would cost, rankings of which systems would be better than others, and we're getting the entire system (center channels, side towers, subwoofer, a receiver, and 4 side/back channels) all for what would retail as the price of maybe only one good subwoofer or 2 of the other speakers. He's even doing a custom finish on them just the way we want it to look.

This isn't what we're getting, but you can see that there are lots of options, so we're glad to be getting an "expert opinion" to help us decide what we want.

Normally we wouldn't be spending this kind of money right now, but we're only going to have a "Phil" for so long, and this is really something that we would end up purchasing at some point in our lives. So why should we wait to do it just to spend well over 3 times the amount we're spending now? Phil even said, "I wasn't expecting you guys to go all out, but you're going to have the best system I ever built! It's going to sound phenomenal!" We told Phil that we were just hoping to have it done some time around Christmas, but he said, "Oh, well I was planning on having it installed around Memorial Day Weekend!" Yeah...so our Christmas will be coming early this year, but I'm going to stick to my guns and not buy Christmas presents this year for Mark and myself. We did that last year, and I think we can do it again. Besides, this is going to be the best Christmas present ever! How do I expect to top this? (Now that we've committed this much money into it, sooner or later I'm going to have to crack and let Mark actually buy a Blu-ray player...and it most likely won't be the cheapest one we can get either! *sighs* )

Quick Catch-Up

I just wanted to write a quick post to catch-up on a few little things that have been going on, but not really worthy of a whole post on their own.

1) Mark received a letter that confirms the location of his internship this summer for the Middlesex County DA's Office. It will be at the courthouse in Waltham which will be about 20 minutes or so in the opposite flow of rush-hour traffic. So that will be nice for him. We're not doing another long-distance thing like last summer when he was in China....THANK GOODNESS!! He will also not have to worry about trying to commute over an hour each way to the DA's offices at the Cape and Islands District, like we originally anticipated. YAY for saving on gas money!!

2) Mark was looking into doing another internship along with the DA's office at a company called Axion International, which is a micro-financing establishment that was really interested in his Chinese ability. However, both the DA and Axion positions are full-time work, so he couldn't do them both at the same time, and the DA's office has a program of 13 weeks that really can't be split. So, there was no time left to do a full internship at Axion, and he will only be sticking with the one internship. We're still happy that it will be a good experience for him though. We're both hoping that he will be happy at this DA's office for the summer.

3) Mark's semester is coming to a close- last day of classes was yesterday- which means that studying for finals is at full-speed. He studies from the time he gets up until midnight everyday, trying desperately to finish his outlines fast enough so that he can really get the cramming part of studying underway. His first final is on Thursday April 30, and then he has 5 days to prepare for the other 3 tests. He has finals on May 5th, 6th, and 7th. There won't be much time for studying in between.

4) Then the very next morning (May 8th at 6:30am) we fly out to Utah for a wedding that afternoon. Mark's brain will be numb and he'll probably not remember anything that happens that day, but we're determined to be a part of his little brother's wedding anyway! :) I know that I'm getting excited to see family and friends that we haven't seen since we moved to Boston. As for Mark, I'm sure he'd be more excited if he was allowing himself to focus on the trip for longer than 5 seconds...but there's too much going on in his brain regarding the First Amendment, what types of Evidence can be admitted into the courtroom, and how frustrated he is with the amount of information there is to know about Professional Responsibility. (Poor guy!!)

So for right now, things seem to be going just fine for us. Mark may have a different perspective because he's so stressed over school, but we really have been given so many blessings that life feels really great for me. I guess the only things that would make life completely perfect is if we knew that Mark already had a job lined up, and that it was a guarantee that he would get good grades...and if there was no concern about whether I had to return to work or not when the baby is born. But...it wouldn't be real life if everything was totally perfect and going according to plan. We're going to need a few speedbumps to keep life interesting, right? I'm so grateful for the blessings from Heavenly Father and that we are able to make it through one day at a time.

Who Spilled the Beans?...oh, I guess it was ME!

I can't believe it's been so long since my last post...ok...actually I can believe it. There have been a few things going on that I would love to write about, but I couldn't really write a whole lot without spilling the beans too early.

Now, in case you haven't heard yet...

We're EXPECTING!!!

The beans are spilt, and now we can go on with our lives, and I can continue blogging without a worry of accidently letting something slip!


Now those of you who have followed my blog for a while know how badly baby fever was affecting me over the past several months. (I even tried to NOT blog about it in the hopes that it would either go away, or that I wouldn't be putting anymore "pressure" on the hubby about it.) So, naturally when I learned that I was pregnant I was excited, and I wanted to tell the world to no longer fret over my "condition." I had a really hard time coming up with anything to say that was not related to this topic. So, I just didn't blog at all!



As an example of what I mean, here are a few highlights from our past few weeks.

April 2, My Birthday
-Mark's school held the Public Interest Project (PIP) Auction to raise money for the PIP grants that students applied for. Mark and I bid on a couple items, but we lost them both...one only at the very last moment of the silent auction. I left early because I was tired. Later that night I called all the family to tell them that we are expecting!

April 4, General Conference-Birthday
-We had a few people over to watch the sessions of General Conference on Saturday, and then after the 2nd session but before the Priesthood Session we had a birthday party for me where I told everyone in attendance that we are expecting!



April 5, General Conference-Dinner with friends
-After the sessions of General Conference on Sunday, we went over to Anny Li's place to have a Taiwanese dinner in honor of Dershin's mother being in town. It was so fun to have some new dishes that I've never had before. Then they surprised me with a cake for my birthday because they couldn't come the night before, so I told them the news they missed- that we are expecting!

April 12, Easter Sunday
-Easter was a very good day at Church. I felt the Spirit in our meetings. I got to perform "His Hands" with sign language as I sang, much like I had done in my ward in Utah. I was surprised that I was actually able to get through the whole song without crying, partly because I'm pregnant and get a little more emotional than usual, but I spent a lot of time looking up at the back wall instead of into the faces of the congregation. Seeing too much emotion in the people's faces makes it much harder to perform as you get overwhelmed with the Spirit. I received several compliments, and several people told me they cried...so I guess I did a good job. That really is one of my favorite pieces, so I was so glad to be able to perform it.

That night we had the Elder Missionaries, the Tylers, and the Liddiards over for Easter Dinner. I made chicken and dumplings because that was Mark's request, and we even got out my nice China for the event. Sorry, we didn't take any pictures. I forgot about that- could it be due to that pregnancy memory loss? But it was a delightful time with our friends and to hear the message the missionaries left with us before heading to an appointment. Overall, it was a busy, yet blissful day. We truly are blessed to know of Our Savior and His Atonement for us.

April 13, Follow-up Dr. Appt.

-Mark came with me to my appointment where we got to hear the heartbeat for the first time. A few friends told me that I'd cry when I hear it, but I didn't. It did make it seem more real to me though, like it wasn't just my imagination or that it somehow wasn't going to happen. It made me more excited for the little life inside of me, but I didn't get all weepy.

Ok, so from now on I'm hoping that I will still have things to blog about that are not related to this pregnancy topic... no matter how excited I am about this!!!! =) I've decided to start another blog for the baby stuff, and that I'd talk about all that girly stuff there, and I'd try to keep this blog for stuff more main-stream - everyday within the Dahl household type of topics. If you notice that I haven't written in this blog for a while, you may want to check over at the other one in case there's an update on the "little Dahl-ling." I'm planning on keeping the baby blog private, so if you'd like to be able to view that one, please leave a comment with your email so that I can give you the permission to view it. The baby blog is at URL http://thelittledahl-ling.blogspot.com/ for those of you who are interested. Here's to hoping that I can keep up on 2 different blogs at once...a far stretch, but hopefully I can make it work!!!

Mark's Birthday = Fondue

So Mark had his 26th birthday this past Saturday, and we really had some fun with it. Mark has a meeting every Saturday morning, but when he came home I was making biscuits and sausage gravy for his birthday breakfast. It turned out that my visiting teachers came over while I was still preparing it, so they ate with us too, which was really a lot of fun.

Then, through most of the rest of the day, Mark and I just hung out around the house. Mark opened his gifts from his parents and from me. (He was totally excited about the raquetball stuff, Mom and Dad. Thanks!) We did a few chores and got the house ready for the party that night... but we didn't really try to fill our day with too much stuff. Mark was doing all he could to enjoy his birthday... and avoid doing homework!

That evening we had our friends John and Delys Tyler and Angela Monteiro over for dinner. I made a pot roast and gravy (as well as the last bits of cleaning up the apartment) while Mark did the mashed potatoes and salad. I think dinner went quite well, despite the bottom of the salt shaker falling out and all the salt piling onto the table. :)

After dinner we had several more friends come over for a fondue party. We had one fondue pot with melted chocolate, and another pot had melted caramel. We asked people to bring different things to dip, so we had bananas, strawberries, apples, gummy bears, pretzels, and pineapple. I made a box of Angel Food Cake for Mark to blow out the candles, and then cut it up to also dip in the chocolate. We had a really good turn out, and everyone seemed to have a really good time.

I guess it's time to start planning for my birthday party... since Mark is only 12 days older than me, that means my birthday is coming up. However, I don't really know what I feel like doing for my B-day...it's not on a weekend like Mark's was. Hmmm... I guess we'll have to think about that one! :0)

Totally Awesome Souvenirs

I mentioned before that Mark bought some cool souvenirs from New Orleans, but I didn't have pictures of them yet. So... here they are.

Can you guess which one he brought back for me and which one he got for himself?

Spring Break is Over... ;-(

I had already scheduled a couple vacation days to go on a short trip with Mark while he was out of school for Spring Break, but a few weeks before that week came, an opportunity came up for him to go to New Orleans for a pro-bono trip. So, since I already had 2 days off from work, and Mark wasn't going to be around anyways, I made plans to visit my friend Theresa Bailey in Maryland. Theresa was a really good friend back in high school, but we didn't really get many chances to see each other since high school. The last time I saw her she was pregnant, and I was just beginning to think that something might "happen" with this Mark guy...and now her daughter is 4 years old and I've celebrated my 4th wedding anniversary. It's amazing how times flies! It was great to see Theresa again and to catch up on the past few years. We both took out our scrapbooks and picture albums and just went through all the memories we could think of to share...I could see how her little girl was growing through the years and just how much fun they've had.

The few days we had together were mainly spent hanging around the house. I did help her unload her truck some to help organize what stuff needed to go to the attic and what needed to go to Goodwill. Theresa had a job interview on Monday, so I took Enidina (Nina) to Chuck E. Cheese for a couple hours.

We just went from game to game, earning tickets galore, and just having the time of our lives. I'd say it was good practice for me in knowing a little bit of what to expect as a parent- potty breaks, potty accidents, and hungry tummies all included.

To tell you the truth, Theresa doesn't feel like she has much support from her parents in a lot of the things that she does with her little girl...I mean, what parent does NOT think that their way is the best way to raise a child, right? But I just want to make one thing clear: I saw the way she interacted with Nina, and the way Nina talks to her and other people...Nina's behavior in general...and I think Theresa is doing a SUPERB job in raising her daughter!! Sure, they have rough spots along the journey of life, but that's bound to happen to everyone at some point. With all that's happened and everything included, I don't think that it's possible for anyone to be doing better with Nina than Theresa is doing right now. So, will all of you who are out there in web-land give a little applause to this fabulous mommy! She's really doing a great job, and trust me, I've seen a lot of mommies in my day! ;)

I had a great time in Maryland, and I'm glad Theresa and Nina let me come and stay with them for a few days. Theresa was so excited for me for the little girly things that Mark just doesn't really get excited over...and to just bond again...*sighs*...it was good to see her, and I'm sorry to say that it will be a while before I can see her again. (Too bad I have these strange smiles in these pictures...)

As for Mark's trip to New Orleans, he left Sunday and came back on Saturday. It was a long trip, but oh, how he enjoyed the nice weather of the South! He was in shorts and t-shirts all week long, and was not looking forward to coming back to the 30 degree weather of Boston...even though it was very nice for New England standards, thank you very much. Mark spent the week conducting a survey regarding the housing projects for those affected by Hurricane Katrina. You'll probably need to hear from him the details of what he did and what he learned, but he said that it was a very eye-opening week for him. He learned quite a bit about the culture of the communities down there, and he was surprised at how readily the people declare their faith in Christ to everyone about everything in life. He seemed to be very grateful for the experience and really enjoyed his time there. Too much time was spent away from his homework...knowing how much he has to do, but all in all it was a good trip. He learned that he really is different from so many people when he chooses to not participate in clubbing and going to bars. It seemed to take a while, but he eventually was able to become comfortable with the crowd he was with and didn't feel so much like an outsider. Yet, he was glad to come home...and be with me! yay :)

People asked me if I missed him during the week that he was gone, but with my own trip to MD, and the feeling of what it was like when Mark was gone for 8 weeks over the summer...this one week felt like nothing to me. Sure, I'd rather be with him than away from him, but an entire week doesn't seem to phase me anymore...is that a bad thing? I guess it will depend on the week, won't it? That will probably change when I have a child to worry about and not have his help with the housework. Yeah...that seems a bit scarier.

He brought home some pretty cool souvenirs too!! Pictures of those to come later...maybe in my next post! Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Just to Catch-Up

So, since my last post, Uncle Roger did pass away on Feb. 20, 2009. My parents flew out to Utah this week to be there for the funeral services and to be with family. I'm just glad that he's not suffering anymore because the cancer was really making him miserable. I'm still keeping his family in my prayers because I don't get to talk to them much as we never get to see each other, but everyone can use a prayer every now and then.

But on a lighter note, Mark has found an internship for the summer that will be significantly closer to home than the one he found earlier. He will be working at the DA's office for Middlesex County instead of for the Cape and Islands District that he was going to work for. This means that he will be spending at most 1 hour commuting, not at least 1.5 hours each way. He says it's practically the same job, so I'm happy for him. It is another unpaid internship, but it's still exciting that he will be able to get some good experience this summer, and he won't have to GO AWAY to find it. Believe it or not, I did NOT want another summer with him gone. YAY!!

Also, another little exciting bit for him is that Mark is going to New Orleans with a group from school for a pro-bono trip during Spring Break. He's going to be gone the whole week. I don't get to go with him, but I'm still going to have some fun. I'm planning a visit with a high school friend who now lives in Maryland. I figured that we've been so far apart for so long (me in Utah, her in places like Delaware, or Philadelphia) that now that we're within a day's drive, we ought to make an effort to be able to see one another...at least ONCE while I'm here in New England. So, this is it, and to tell you the truth, I'm getting pretty excited to see Theresa and get to know her little girl. I'm expecting it to be a blast! I'll be sure to post more fun pictures and details about that after the fact.

This bit may actually be just for the sake of adding pictures. :)

I'm thinking about dying my hair again just before Cory's wedding in early May, so which red do you think I should go for? Leave a comment and place your vote! (Hopefully you'll be able to enlarge the pictures to be able to get a closer view of #3.)

#1 #2

This first picture is only a day or two before this second picture, but I like the way that it faded.

#3

This seemed to be a more subtle way to go, and I can still try to have some blonde highlights in it...or I can go like #4.

#4

This is a week or so after the original dye job, but it was pretty fire-engine red, with blonde highlights. I thought it was really fun, but when I look at pictures of it, I think, "Whoa! Is that what I looked like?" I think this might still be fun if I add it as highlights only, and not have most of it dyed.