The World Needs More Ninjas

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. Apart from what Matt has already written about, here’s what else I’ve been up to…

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Lisa’s visit
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Lisa came to visit me last week for about 3 days. It was SO fun to have girl time during the day while Matt was working. The first day we just relaxed, talked, watched TV, etc.

The second day we went shopping at a big mall nearby. While we were there, another childhood friend, Stephanie, met up with us for lunch at the Cheesecake factory. Yum!! Stephanie is living nearby while attending grad school at UNC.

It was great to have Lisa, Stephanie, and me all together for a girly afternoon. We all three grew up in the same neighborhood so we’ve literally known each other since we were babies.

The last day Lisa was here was a beautiful day with temps reaching almost 70. We got up and went on a looong walk around the neighborhood. We walked so far that we ended up at an Old Navy and TJ Maxx at a shopping center near our house. So we shopped for a while and then walked back home. It was relaxing just to walk around in the sunny weather…something you can never do in February in Illinois!

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Wake Forest
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Last weekend Jared’s a capella group at Clemson, Impulse, was singing at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC.

It’s only about an hour and a half drive, so Matt and I went over for the evening to see the group perform. Of course Impulse did great and I was so proud of my little brother!

It was only the second time we’ve seen them perform, and it was so wonderful to be able to hop in the car and drive just down the road to see Jared.

More photos here.

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DMV
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Today I ventured into the wonderful world of the DMV to get our new license plate and my NC driver’s license. Of course you always hear horror stories about the DMV, so I was slightly nervous. I arrived at the main DMV headquarters in Raleigh where I was told you cannot get a driver’s license. What the heck? You can’t get a driver’s license at the DMV? Who knew? Anyway, I was able to get our new license plate after much paperwork was exchanged. One thing I had to take was an application form that Matt and I filled out and had to get notarized beforehand. Somewhere on there Matt had started to write the date as 1/16/07, but then had written over the 1 to make it be 2/17/07. Well, just because of that little bit they almost made me take it back and completely redo it! Fortunately I had this nice little lady helping me, so she went to check with her boss and they let this one “slide.” Whew! One good thing was that I hardly even had to wait in line for all of this which was a definite nice surprise.

So then I had to venture to ANOTHER DMV office about 10 miles away in a different part of Raleigh where I could get my driver’s license. Fortunately the lines weren’t long here either. I passed the tests with flying colors and my picture even turned out decent, so all in all it was a successful day. Now I just have to take our car to get it inspected within the next 10 days…NC requires yearly car inspections.

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Bean
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Of course during all of my daily activities, Bean continues to grow. He/she is 15 weeks now, and according to www.babycenter.com, should be about 4 inches long. I’ve still been feeling good and my appetite is more back to normal (after not having much of an appetite during the first trimester). My second doctor appointment is tomorrow, and hopefully in about 5 more weeks we’ll get to find out if Bean is a boy or girl. We have the crib and changing table/dresser combo in the nursery now, so it’s exciting to look in there and think about a little baby living in our house. We probably won’t do any other decorating in the nursery until we find out the gender.

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Other stuff
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Aside from that I stay at home a lot during the day and take care of “house stuff” and all of the other things that have to be taken care of when you move. I’ve found that I really enjoy watching the Ellen show at 10 everyday, so I try to watch that when I can. I occasionally watch Family Feud as well while I’m eating lunch around noon. I try not to watch too much tv other than those shows so my days don’t get sucked away into nothingness.

Speaking of Family Feud – you wouldn’t believe some of the dumb answers people give on that show. Here’s an example:
The question was “Besides America, name a country that starts with the letter A.” Well, one family started off okay with Argentina, but the next person in the family didn’t say anything at all and ran out of time (strike one), the next person answered “Asia” (strike two), and the next person didn’t say anything either (strike three). So the other family had a chance to give an answer to steal….they all discussed it and agreed their answer would be “Amsterdam”.

What the heck? Asia? Amsterdam? Obviously these families failed elementary school geography. (BTW, the top 4 answers were:Australia, Argentina, Austria, Afghanistan)

I’ve also been going to the gym a few days a week. I joined a place just about a block down the street from our neighborhood, so it’s nice and convenient. I want to stay in shape and hopefully make the whole labor and delivery process a little easier. I’m also planning to sign up for a mom-to-be water aerobics class once it gets a little warmer. Hopefully I can meet some other young moms-to-be!

Matt and I have visited a few churches as well. We’ve liked the ones we’ve been to, but we haven’t gotten a striking feeling that any particular church is the “right” one for us yet. We’re planning to visit a few more. It will be nice to have a church home again to start getting involved in.

Well, I think that pretty much catches you up on what I’ve been up to lately.