Checkin' In

Well, happy late Christmas and New Year to you all! The holidays around here were fun, full and tiring. I'm still feeling like there is a lot to be done before the residue has lifted and life will go back to "normal."

My parents, Jeff & Emily and Anthony all made the trek out here to Utah for Christmas. Mom and Dad rented a couple of condos up at Wolf Creek in Eden, UT (close to Ogden... about 50 miles from SLC) and everyone came out to spend time together, ski and snowboard. Seth and I were able to be there Sunday evening, December 23rd through Christmas Day, but then we had to head back into the city for work on Wednesday. Jeff and Emily stayed through Wednesday morning and then headed back out to Oregon to start work again, too. I headed back up to the condos Friday morning, however, to see Anthony for another day and then he flew back home and Seth came back to hang out with us, too. Seth and I then hung out through Sunday morning when my parents packed up to leave.

Throughout the week, it snowed and snowed here. It was fun to watch it pile up outside and all the skiers and snowboarders of the family were ecstatic about the fresh powder. Due to my "delicate condition," I didn't ski this year, but I did get in a lot of reading, napping and time on the treadmill. As always, we played a lot of games, had a good time catching up on each other's lives and ate a lot of good food.

For New Year's, Seth and I celebrated by going to bed early. I was exhausted from staying up late with the family and doing lots of packing and unpacking and laundry. It was by far our least exciting New Year celebration, but it served us well and 2008 came in peacefully. We then took advantage of our Tuesday off together and tackled a bunch of shopping. We had fun checking out the new IKEA in our area, finally braved the world of Babies R Us (something I've been trying to avoid for as long as possible - it just scares me!), enjoyed REI and picked up a crib set on sale at Shopko.

Since all that action, I've spent a lot of time practicing, stressing over and performing with the Russian Jewish Choir (L'Chaim). We performed on Saturday at the re-opening of the state capitol building. I had no idea how big of a deal this really was (and that was probably a good thing). All in all, things went pretty well and I got to play on a wonderful full length Steinway in the middle of the newly reconstructed rotunda. It's a pretty awesome looking place to perform. At the end of our set, the violinist and I played "Meditation" by Messenet. It went really well and sounded gorgeous in that hall.

Since Saturday I've channelled all my energy toward 1. putting away all Christmas stuff, 2. cleaning the house in preparation for guests at the end of this week and 3. work - school started back up yesterday. Yesterday work was so crazy busy and difficult that I came home with a headache and therefore ate dinner and then went straight to bed. Hopefully today will be a little bit easier and I'll get some more work done at home before needing to sleep.

Wednesday I've got choir again. Thursday we start our childbirth classes. Thursday night our guests come. Friday is my next doctor's appointment. Put all this together with the first week of school, cranky students and faculty and the only week all year that I have more to do during work hours than I can possibly get done... and you get one tired, annoyed, very cranky pregnant woman. It just makes me want warm, gooey brownies in a quiet room all by myself.

So, hopefully after this next weekend has passed, I'll have a chance to post some new pictures for you all. Hopefully, too, I'll find myself in a much more rested, cheerful mood and will be able to tell you more enlightened, happy news.