The First Freeze

So, we've experienced our first Midwest Ice Storm. It actually hasn't been all that bad. It comes because of what they call freezing rain - it's warm enough up in the atmosphere somewhere to be rain and not snow, but when it hits the ground, it's cold enough to freeze it. However, the freezing part hasn't really been happening - at least on the roads. I guess the friction of people driving is enough to keep things wet and sloshy... so what ends up happening, is people walk on the road rather than the sidewalk, because the sidewalks are a bit hazardous. (And it's been a little weird to have to break the ice off your door handle before you can get into the car).

Campus was closed yesterday, and there was a chance it would be today, but sadly, no. Alec will, in fact, be expected to show up at his History of Design Technology final this afternoon.

One thing that has been kind of crazy is all the power outages that have been happening. We haven't been affected by it, but on Monday, the governor declared a state of emergency and sent the National Guard out with water and generators for the 90,000-some-odd people who lost power further south and west of us. Also, there is not salt to be had to melt the ice... Not only can your average residential consumer not walk into their neighborhood ice-melt-supply store, but the actual city of Kansas City itself is out of ice... Who knows when that will be taken care of... Not to be critical, but Alec and I both think that one bad night of ice should not deplete your entire supply of ice-melt... But what do we know, we're only used to those mild, non-icy Logan winters...

Thanksgiving

I know, I know, it's a little past the main event, but I thought I'd give a quick recap:

My family came into town for Thanksgiving, and it was really nice to have them all here - though a little hectic, and we're still trying to figure out where some of our dishes were stashed away to when they so kindly cleaned up after themselves.

My parents came into town from Utah on Tuesday after having spent a few days with my sister in Des Moines, followed by my brother, Lee, from DC on Wednesday, and my sister and her husband (Erin and Matt) later Wednesday night from Des Moines. All in all, we had 7 people in the apartment for most of the week, and it was kind of crazy. The kitties didn't know quite what to do with themselves. Max holed up under the bed for the better part of the week, while Sasha made the rounds socializing and exploring all the new stuff lying around.

Games were played by all ... (mostly)...

Food was had by all ... (definitely)...

Even the kitties had a special Thanksgiving treat - they didn't much care for the cranberry sauce, but the gravy was a BIG hit.

On Friday, we travelled to Independence and Liberty (both about 20-30 minutes away from KC) to do some church history touring. We also visited the Community of Christ (the church formerly known as RLDS) "temple." They gave us a tour and we watched a video about how it all started... It sounded vaguely familiar - the whole Joseph Smith going to the woods thing - while key pieces were left out... Then it turned into some hippy propaganda where we need peace and love and tie-dyed banners in the assembly hall... All sort of strange, but now we can say we did it.

While the boys stayed home to watch the BYU-Utes football game on Saturday, the girls went shopping. We had a great time, spent far too much money on Christmas decorations [if you ask Alec, any money I spend on Christmas decorations is too much, because I never end up liking what I get, so I just get more later. Oh well...] We came home to Dad (Alec) and Grandpa (my dad) setting up the changing table. We already had the crib set up before everyone got into town, but these two decided this would be a good activity while they waited for the women. (They're not really into sports anyway). It was pretty cute.

Under Construction

My apologies... I was getting tired of this polka-dotted blog template and decided to change it... However, I guess I didn't push all the right buttons to keep my "widgets" so I lost the baby poll (that's what makes me the most sad) and the links to our friends' blogs, as well as some other things.... So, we are in the process of getting it all back into working order - Sorry about the ugliness...

A City of Culture & Friends

So... After posting last night, I remembered a few things I had meant to include but forgot about...

Living in Kansas City has really been good to Alec and me. There is so much culture and so many things to do here. Over the last 3 weeks, we've been able to see a show a week - and luckily for us, we have connections so we haven't had to pay.

First we saw The Lieutenant of Inishmore which the university did as a co-production with one of the theatres in town - the Unicorn. (No, they don't do children's theatre). It was refreshing to see new faces and new content than what we were used to in Logan.

The following week, we attended Who's Afraid of Virginia Woofle?, which was being produced by the professional theatre company one of Alec's professors founded. There was some pretty amazing talent that night! It was definitely worth staying up late for!

And this last week, we went to the Kansas City Rep's production of Doubt. Ever since it came out in 2004, we've been wanting to see it. When we took our spring break trip to New York that year, a bunch of our classmates went and we felt really left out. Well, this one was worth the wait. I didn't love the actor playing the priest - not because of what he was accused of - but just because... Although the actress playing Sister Aloysius made up for it many times over. She was amazing!

We are so lucky to be here. It was definitely the right decision for Alec to continue his schooling here. The program is wonderful and the opportunities are endless.

***

Today, we also had the chance to see some old friends of ours. Melissa (Thorseson) Godfrey, who graduated with me, and her husband Matt were in town to see the Garth Brooks concert (jealous, jealous, jealous) and we met up for lunch. We haven't seen or talked to each other since 2005, so it was fun to see them. They're living in Omaha, a mere 2.5 hours away, and they're also expecting a baby at the first of the year, so we'll have to make it a point to see them more often.

As I was getting today's picture off the camera, I came across these. This is from when my sister, Erin, and her husband, Matt, came down from Des Moines over Conference weekend. Yes, that is both of our couches crammed into our office - soon to be nursery - because we had to watch it streaming online because we didn't have the right channel in our cable package that we thought we did.... Those were good times!

. . .

I know, I know: It's been ages! And I apologize to those of you who think I'm cool enough to check this blog frequently enough to miss me posting (thank you for that ego boost...). Anyway... unlike most of you who have cute stories to tell about their kids and their day, not much has been going on here in the LaBau household (one of the many excuses for me not posting). But the main reason is that I've been working... yay! I'm just temping right now, although after being there for a month with my own company email address, phone line (that doesn't work) and cubicle, it doesn't much feel like temp work. I'm working in the marketing department of a company called Fujifilm Sericol. They make ink and printing presses. I don't really have any experience in marketing, but I can run circles around them when it comes to spreadsheets, so that's a lot of what I've been doing. Hence - me not writing. I find it really hard to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours a day at work and then come home and sit in front of another computer... Oh well, I will try to be better... :) Anyway, it's been good to get out of the house, and the money has been nice, so I guess I can't complain too much... It was hard to adjust to the "demotion", if you will... In Logan, I was in charge of myself, could do whatever I wanted, and was respected and given more credit than I was probably due, (thank you, Jarrod), but at Sericol, they still haven't quite figured out that I have a brain and can think for myself, and they're always running out of projects so I spend a lot of time just sitting there trying to look productive even though I could probably really just go home after half a day... But like I said, I'm enjoying it pretty well....

Alec has been having a good time in school. It's approaching the end of the semester, so he's realizing the impact of what not having any due dates can do to you. But he'll get through - he always does. He's been able to find some outside work, as well, which has been a nice change of pace from the grind of schoolwork. And it's giving him the opportunity to make some really great connections in the city that he can use later on... We think he's found a summer job, but it's not very official yet, and we don't want to jinx it, so stay tuned for more on that later.

The kitties are doing well. Sasha has become quite a momma's girl, so whenever I'm home, she has to be right there with me. It's cute, and also a little annoying at times. I guess it's just practice for when some other little person is counting on me to fulfill his every need.

Speaking of the baby.... He is doing well... We've only been to the doctor once since my last post, and it was just in and out, everything seems to be going fine, do you have any questions, see you in three weeks... which is good. We have made some pretty exciting purchases lately, though. Two weeks ago, what started out as Amber and Alec sitting down to go over the budget turned into Amber and Alec spending 5 hours of our Saturday baby shopping. A lot of what we were planning to get (the big purchases) we were going to do online because we found some really great sales (40% off), and shipping was free... but the sale ended "tomorrow". So, we got in the car and headed out for a marathon crib/bedding/glider experience so we could actually see the items in real life pre-purchase. I was very proud of Alec - he didn't have a chance to mentally prepare, and he ended up being the more logical one of us in the end anyway. Below are the pictures of what we've purchased so far:

Crib
Changing Table

Bedding Set

Glider & Ottoman

We actually got this in a color called "pear" which will be really exciting and versatile for both genders, and the chair is the comfiest chair I've ever sat in!

So... I guess that's really it for us... I will try to be better about posting more frequently, and if you really miss me, you can always nudge me... (you know who you are!)