New York state of mind...

Mike and I took a vacation last week to New York city. It was my first time there and we had a great time. We stayed with our good friends Chris and Sarah. While we were there we saw a Broadway show (Spring Awakening--excellent!), a Mets game, a Yankees game, and did lots of sightseeing. I must say I was a little bit overwhelmed by some parts of the city, especially Times Square. But I loved the smaller neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, Chelsea, and Little Italy. I also really loved Central Park. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Chris, Mike and Sarah after the Mets game
Mike and I on a Circle Line boat cruise around Manhattan
We won free tickets to the David Letterman show

(Patrick Dempsey was one of the guests and most of the women in the audience were excited because of Grey's Anatomy but I was thinking about Can't Buy Me Love)
Central Park

Yankees game

On a much sadder note our friend Sarah learned on our last day in New York that her dad had been shot and killed on his farm in Centerville, IA. As you can imagine this has been incredibly difficult for Sarah and her family. Please say a prayer to help them through this time.

I've been tagged...

What was I doing 10 years ago?
Enjoying my junior year of high school and giving my parents gray hair.

5 things on today’s to do list:
1. Clean the bathrooms
2. Grocery shop
3. Mop the kitchen floor
4. Waste time browsing online for maternity clothes/baby stuff
5. Take Harvey for a walk

5 snacks I enjoy:
1. Dry Cheerios
2. Pretzels
3. Fruit
4. Twizzlers
5. Cheese and crackers

5 things I would do if I became a billionaire:
1. Start a college fund for Critter
2. Buy the ridiculously expensive round crib with star posts that I want for Critter
3. Pay off my mortgage
4. Give back
5. Give Mikey a lifelong membership to the Cheese of the Month Club (he's always wanted to belong, but it ain't cheap)

5 bad habits:
1. Cursing while vaccuuming (I really hate when the cord gets in the way)
2. Procrastinating
3. Reading blogs or people.com when I should be working
4. Forgetting to be grateful for all that I do have and instead focusing on the things that I don't have
5. Impatience

Pet Peeves:
People who get angry at airline employees (is it their fault that there is bad weather or a mechanical problem?), slow drivers, people who walk around in stores talking on one of those blue tooth ear piece cell phone things (sometimes I think they are talking to me and then I feel like an idiot when I realize they aren't)

5 places I’ve lived:
1. Newton, KS
2. Muskogee, OK
3. Tulsa, OK
4. Cedar Rapids, IA
5. Des Moines, IA

5 jobs I’ve had:
1. Gift wrapper
2. Nanny
3. Bank teller
4. Camp counselor at a horse camp
5. Family Therapist

My kids will never behave that way...right?

So I have been in Salt Lake City for a training since early Monday morning and I flew back this afternoon. On my flight from Denver to Des Moines I was seated behind a family of four. There was a work-out looking man (Dad), an irritated looking woman (Mom) with a lot of make-up and very youthful clothing (that is my polite way of saying she was dressed like an 18 year old Girls Gone Wild Wannabe), and two girls approximately 6 and 10. So there was a row of three seats in which the Dad sat on the aisle and the two girls sat in the other two seats and Mom (partied-too-hard-in-her-early-days Barbie) sat across the aisle from the rest of the family with headphones on looking annoyed. From the moment they got on the flight the two girls were fighting, hitting, yelling, whining, and generally annoying the majority of the plane's other occupants. This pretty much continued for the duration of the flight as Dad ineffectively tried to get them to stop and Mom offered the occasional "You are in so much trouble." As my co-worker and I observed this (she has no children yet) she leaned over to me and said 'Are you sure you're ready for that?" I replied with a phrase that has become a staple in my recent conversations: "My kids won't behave that way."
I say this phrase often as I sit at restaurants, shop at Target, and wander through the mall. I am beginning to wonder if this is a self-soothing mantra that all first-time pregnant people repeat to themselves...

Ready or not, here I come!

Per Karoline's multiple requests, I have arrived...