THE BELLY BUMP

There have been a few myths of pregnancy that I have hoped were just that...myth. The one about your feet growing and the one about your bellybutton popping out. I've always had a pretty deep innie so I thought there was no way it was going to pop out, but this weekend I looked down and half of it was slowly making its way to the surface, where it was almost flush with the rest of my stomach. The whole outtie thing freaks me out a little bit, I'm not gonna lie. Fortunately its still in, but every once in a while I'll look down and it is just teasing me by taking on some weird shape like its just waiting till I forget about it and decides to go all the way out! As for the shoe myth, I am writing it up as a fallacy (or at least hoping and praying that it is, because I love my shoes and would devastated to part with them!).

At a little over 6 months my belly is not quite as big as I would have expected. But I guess that happens sometimes with your first baby. I thought I would have the little basketball belly at this point, but maybe the little guy is trying to be kind to me and stay little so that labor is as easy as possible on me since we all know this pregnancy hasn't been. My big project this last week was packing up all my clothes since the majority of them weren't quite working with my new figure. All that remains in my closet now are my extra long shirts and my maternity clothes (there was no way those jeans I've been wearing since high school were buttoning anymore). It has helped make things a little less depressing when getting ready in the morning. Most mornings my routine consisted of pulling out a shirt only to find out that the days when it had once fit were gone and it had now transformed into a belly shirt (Man I would be one hot mama at the trailer park...with those half shirts and this beer belly stickin out!) But yeah here are some pics of the preggers belly that my mom took this last weekend. My tummy seems to get a little bigger in the evening, supposedly it has something to do with the muscles relaxing...so you are seeing it in its prime.

(I know you gotta love Jackie's posing ideas)

Prez Day Weekend

Since it was Presidents Day last weekend, Jake had a four day weekend...which made a mini holiday for us. It was great because the weather was way nice here in San Diego, so we made sure to take advantage of that and my family came down and we all went to La Jolla Shores for the Day. Since getting comfortable during pregnancy is a task all in itself I have come to a new appreciation of the beach: how the sand just molds around you and how you can dig a little hole for your belly...it makes for an experience as close to comfort as I've experienced during pregnancy. My belly is still not looking that pregnant. I am just waiting for it to pop because I feel like I need to wear a sign saying: "Its not a beer belly...I swear there is a baby in there!" I feel like I am still in that questionable state where if you didn't know I was pregnant and saw me walking on the beach or in the mall, the thought of pregnancy may cross your mind but I am pretty sure it would be followed with the thought of "wow, she's a kegger all star!" Oh well I just better accept the awkwardness because I'm sure it'll be around a while.

A day at Brighton (the warm version)

Hey all, everybody! I hope that you are all doing well. Well, it's been a very busy week, but very fulfilling as well. As you can see, San Diego has been having great weather, thus Holli and I, last Saturday, decided that we'd hop on over to Ocean Beach and bring a lunch along in order to take advantage of the weather and get a little break before the new week of school started.
It was fantastic! And as you can see, we spotted a street sign for "Brighton Street," we had to get a picture of it because Brighton is my favorite ski resort in Utah, and is a street name off of my favorite beach in San Diego.
Also, Holli and I know where we'll be this summer (kind of), I was offered a job to be a law clerk over the summer with the State Bar of California, Office of the Chief Trial Counsel. The State Bar regulates the conduct and licenses of all the attorneys in California as well as educates the public on their legal rights. The office for which I'll be working undertakes the task of prosecuting attorneys that have breached their ethical violations (i.e. dishonesty in their dealings with their clients or other attorneys, or have committed felonies, etc.). Their website is www.calbar.ca.gov. Getting this job was a real blessing seeing as how it takes pressure off of me to be looking for work late into the semester. Now I can simply focus on my school work and not worry about where I'm going to work over the summer. I felt really good during my interview with them. They expect a lot, but at the same time, are committed to giving their law clerks a great summer experience with exposure to many aspects of the law.
They are located in Los Angeles, so that poses a tough decision for Holli and I: that being whether we should move to L.A. for three months (which might be tough b/c the baby is due on June 7th and I start work on May 27th) or stay at Holli's mom's old house in Murrieta (which would save us a TON of money). The only thing I worry about is the commute from Murrieta to L.A. five days a week. I would get on the train in Corona (about a half hour from Murrieta) then ride it into L.A. (about an hour). It would be nice to be able to read on the train, and the State Bar reimburses me for public transportation, but it would be a lot of commuting each day.
In order to decide what we are going to do, I going to go into L.A. to meet them on Tuesday to get some papers and take a tour of the place. I'm going to try the train commute from Murrieta to see what it's like and that should give us a better idea of what's going on.
I hope that you all have a great President's Day weekend. It should be a great one here. Again, we are taking advantage of the beach today, thus we should have some new pictures for you all coming up soon.

Take Care and Love you.

ADDICTED

About a week or two ago my dad was getting really excited about the new season of Lost. I remember when it started my freshman year that he had saved some episodes for me to watch when I came home for Thanksgiving/Christmas break. I remembered it being entertaining, and with the whole writers strike still going strong, Jake and I decided to give it a try. We started watching the new episode and were totally Lost. I looked online and saw that ABC had posted all the seasons online, I am guessing to catch people up, so that is what we decided to do. Well that was Pandora's box. Jake and I are totally addicted. We are already well through season two. Its horrible, we literally cannot stop. We'll watch one episode to unwind at the end of the day and before we know it we've watched three. Yesterday was the worst. We would watch an episode and it would end with a cliffhanger, so we had to keep watching another one and another till we could muster up the willpower to turn it off (I don't think that willpower would have been present if sleep wasn't needed to stay alert so we could figure out what was going on with Lost). We both woke up this morning and we had both had dreams about the show, seriously we are SICK! I guess admitting it is the first step to curing and addiction, but I think the only cure for us is going to be the series finale.

Congrats Jake :)

Last week Jake joined in on the restless nights club, though for different reasons. Between the two of us, I am pretty sure we got less sleep than thirteen-year-olds at a slumber party. The reason for his sleepless nights was that his first semester grades came out last Friday. The experience was an all together nervewrecking one. His law school asks the bottom 25% of the class to withdrawal. He felt rather confident after finals, but the long waiting period can really mess with your head. The combination of it taking forever for grades to be posted, coupled with the fact that the one exam at the end of the semester WAS his grade, with no other indicators along the way of how you are doing; not to mention that ever since they had started their second semester, the professors were offering their office hours to students that might need a shoulder to cry on, made for a really nervewrecking waiting experience. The anticipation and uncertainty is what made that week one of restlessness for him. Then 4pm Friday came. By this point I was nervous for him! He logged online and the next thing I saw was him jumping off the couch and what I would describe as his version of a superbowl touchdown dance. He did extremely well, better than he was even hoping he would.
Then the good news kept coming. Saturday there is a career day fair at UCLA, where law school students interview for summer internships. Weeks ago they had to put together their resumes and cover letters and get them into the potential employers who would be attending the fair. The employers then would sort through the applications, and possibly offer a few law school students interviews for the opportunity to do a summer clerkship (internship) with them. Early this week the results were posted, Jake got almost all his top choices, including some really prestigious ones such as the United States Federal Trade Commission, the United States Judicial Department, the State Bar of California as well as a couple others. We are so proud of him, no matter what happens with those, its amazing for him to even have the opportunity to interview. He has been putting in ten to twelve (sometimes more) hour days, so it is great to see all of his hard work paying off. We are way excited to see what happens, or what other opportunities come his way.