The Big D (as in Dallas)

Shawn finished his second to last interview today in Dallas or as most of my family knows it as my choice for fellowship.  I would love to go back to Texas!!!!  It's by far the cheapest place for living expenses but the main reason is family.  My sister will be living there and we'll only be a short drive from more family in Houston.  I would be so happy to be able to make it to baptisms, birthday parties, holidays and really any reason.  I didn't think id miss everyone so much but I do, a whole lot it turns out. Oh and let's not forget the food, fajitas and beef BBQ whenever I need a break from cooking, yes please!  And Central market where I can walk around and pretend I can afford the food, oh happy day.  I'm pretty sure I would cry tears of joy if we end up there for fellowship.  Now remember this does not in any way reflect Shawn's opinion of the programs and we will not be sharing that so just keep watching the blog to see where we end up!  We find out in April I think which also happens to be when we find out if we're having a boy or a girl so it's going to be a very exciting month!  Six down one to go!

Valentines Day

After reading some other blogs and what people did for Valentine's Day I feel like a huge slacker.  I'm going to blame it on the fact I'm just starting to have more energy and somedays I still don't have much.  Anyways for the kids I bought donuts from the store and that was their fancy breakfast.  Lazy, I know.  I did buy Shawn some chocolate but that's about it.  I did make a really yummy dinner of calzones and then we had red velvet ice cream cake.  It was so good.   We also watched Despicable Me 2 with the kids and after they went to bed we stayed up and watched Crocodile Dundee 2.  I know super romantic.  After being together ten years I really think we are just not super romantic, and I"m ok with that.  To be honest we don't have the money to buy presents or plan exciting trips so we're perfectly content to just hang out and eat good food together.   I would have taken a picture of the cake but the outside was really ugly.   I don't care though, because man it was good.  And I also decided this week that whenever Devin gets married I"m making his grooms cake and its going to be red velvet in the shape of an armadillo.  I know its like 20 years away but I"m excited.  Well that was our very unromantic Valentine's Day.  Hope everyone else had a great day.

News

Is it just me or does every January seem to go by really fast?  The lack of posting is not lack of nothing going on just the fact I hate using the computer because the track pad doesn't work, its incredibly slow and needs to be plugged in most of the time.  Really the biggest reason I haven't posted is because I"m LAZY these days, but with good reason.  We're expecting baby #4 in August and I really don't have the energy to do much. The first trimester has been fine.  I have never thrown up once during pregnancy so I really can't relate to those that feel sick, I just feel bad for them.  There are a few things I wanted to write down about this pregnancy so far though.
At my first appointment as I was filling out paper work when it asked me how many kids I had and what number this would be I kind of freaked out.  I got all sweaty and nervous and it really hit me that we are going to have four kids in August.  For some reason it didn't hit me how difficult kids can be until I had three (hence the big gap with no kids).  Anyways when I went to the front desk to give my paperwork to someone and they asked how many kids this would make and I told them the woman looked at me and said, "You don't look old enough to have four kids."  It made me feel a little better but even when I was having my exam I was really nervous, enough that my blood pressure was much higher than usual.
That was a month ago and now that I've had time to processes this I'm really excited.  This was intentional I think I'm just out of practice.  It helps that my sister just had a adorable little baby and I keep reminding myself that I get a sweet little baby at first not an big eight year old that is moody.  The kids are very excited and Devin was so excited he took pictures of my sonogram to school so he would have "proof" he's going to be a big brother again.  It was adorable.  Caroline REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wants a little sister and I keep telling her I can't promise her that so she may be really disappointed when we find out, or really happy.  So I'm sure I'll have plenty to post about in August and I'll try and remember to write about everything else.  Caroline is turning 8 next week!? How did that happen?  Anyways stay posted on me loosing my mind I'm sure I'll have some stories to tell!

Salt Lake City

One day when I was in high school one of my teachers told the class that Mormons like feel like they should live in Utah and congregate there.  Knowing that was WAY off I raised my hand and said, "I'm   Mormon and have no desire to ever live in Utah."  That really hasn't changed too much in the last ten years (yes I know I went to college there) but I can find a few reasons why it wouldn't be too bad for fellowship.  We do have lots of family up there and it would be great to see them especially the great grandparents.  I would love for my kids to go pick fruit and veggies from my grandparents garden and get to know them. And it would be wonderful for grandma Graham to meet our sweet little Graham.  I also have a friend from high school that lives up there and it would be great to see her too not to mention the aunts, uncles, and cousins I haven't seen in a really long time.  Lots of family, plus I would make sure to head down to Zion's National Park and/or Arches because they really are beautiful.  But Salt Lake also has cold winters, dry weather I don't know how to deal with, and higher rent we'd have to pay, so it's not really number one on my list.  But I promise we'd survive if we did end up venturing out there.
On a different note, tonight while we were watching The Croods Graham stood up several times and said to Devin and Caroline, "Don't worry guys they don't die."  Love that he feels he needs to look out for his siblings and their tender little hearts. He makes me laugh everyday.

Denver

Shawn had interview number 4 yesterday in Denver.  I'm not going to lie the only thing that would make me happy about living there is the fact that Shawn's sister lives just a little north so we would be close to some family which would be awesome, but that's where the appeal ends for me though.  Its cold, expensive, and they seem to have a large number of senseless acts of violence.  Columbine, and the movie theatre shooting were both not far from the hospital Shawn would be working at.  Granted crimes like this seem to be increasing everywhere but still creepy.  It is close to mountains though so maybe Shady and her family would come visit so they could go camping and Brandon could look at rocks.  I wouldn't mind that either.  I would love to be close to family but its been so cold this winter right now I may take warm weather over family.  I'm desperate for some sun!

San Diego

I got a little behind posting about the places Shawn has interviewed at, mainly because its kind of a pain to type on the iPad.  Anyways, after interviewing in Los Angeles he drove down to San Diego for another one.  It was nice to get both interviews done in the same weekend.  So all those fun things I listed about LA can pretty much be lumped into San Diego as well.  Disneyland, and Legoland are close enough, I like to pretend that we'd venture to at least one of those places.  San Diego is smaller which I like and apparently lots of the fellows live on or REALLY close to the beach.  And if we're going to pay a ton of money in rent anyways, I'd rather go into more debt living on the beach than living farther away.  I'd really love to have lots of beach days!  Most of the places Shawn is interviewing at are going to be more expensive than Tennessee so if we're going to be paying more to live somewhere warm and on the beach!  Oh and I think I could get on board with eating Mexican food, probably not as good as Tex Mex but I could really go for some fajitas!  You won't see me shed a tear if we end up in San Diego!