So this week has been full of happenings and events. While Hubii was working hard over spring break, I was busy finishing up midterm assignments and studying for midterm exams. We had to get a lot of stuff done before we left for a weekend wedding trip to Atlanta (but more about that later).

Hubii was pretty sick for the first few days of his spring break, but after recovering some of his strength he managed to grade two exams, one homework, took his computer in to the apple store for problems with the keyboard, CD ROM drive and battery, AND he finished the taxes. Yey for first time home owners credit, Boo for owing more in income tax than we planned because they didn't withhold enough from my paycheck. Actually, it's not so bad because we put most of my paycheck in savings; so we don't really include it in our budget AND we make some interest off of it before we have to hand it over to the government. Hubii is so very diligent, he will be my inspiration for this week because I have spring break and am already tempted to sleep it away.

Another thing that Hubii did this week was to join me at my ultrasound. I can't believe the baby is so big inside me (although, he/she is probably only big enough to barely fill two cupped hands). Anyways Babii (as a good friend suggested I call the little guy/gal) was very cute but stubborn during the ultrasound, refusing to rotate into the right alignment despite prodding and poking. I had two different kinds of ultrasound (the regular abdominal kind and the 'Australian' kind, also called transvaginal ultrasound). Then after I went through my normal check up we tried the abdominal ultrasound again, to get all the right measurements from the correct perspective. Finally, the baby turned and the ultrasound tech was able to get all the measurements on the baby.

Here are some of the pictures that were taken during the ultrasound.

It's just too cute.

And look at the size of the brains! In one angle (sorry I don't have a picture), you could see its ears! Which means that Babii will have Dadii's big ears, yey! (Wait did I just add another nickname? oh well, Hubii and Dadii will be used interchangeably from here on)!

A little on the down side the baby is 42nd percentile for how far along I am. The doctor said that this was fine and I am normal, but I really want a chubby baby. Friends have been telling me that this might be a good thing, seeing as I don't want to deliver a 100th percentile baby. Still, I will be marginally increasing my calorie intake and praying that it goes to Babii and not to Momii :)

So after turning in take-home exams and doing a midterm on Friday I rushed home to pack and get ready for our whirlwind trip to Atlanta. Our flight to Atlanta arrived at 8pm and two of our amazing friends, D & LL from Atlanta, braved the traffic to pick us up at the airport! We then went out to dinner and had our first experience of Yeah! Burger. I was super happy with my burger (but then I am not a burger connoisseur, I would be super happy with a Five guys Burger). We then spent the rest of the night playing Yahtzee with some more great Atlanta friends at Ormsby's. Another great place that makes me miss Atlanta so much and wish I were back there :(

Oh, I suppose I should mention that we also played Othello and I was completely trounced by LL, my opponent. Ah well.

The next day for breakfast Hubii and I had breakfast with my college roomie and Maid-of-honor, LG. I forgot to take my camera so here's a picture of us from the wedding.

We at one of my favorite Atlanta breakfast places, the Flying Biscuit. I don't usually go overboard there, but since I hadn't had it in 2 years, I completely overindulged. I had their biggest breakfast, which comes with eggs, sausage, diced hashbrowns, a biscuit and my favorite, an oatmeal pancake topped with peaches. Yumm!! I was completely stuffed after and felt like a whale. I did share some of it with Hubii, he was not as happy with his cinnamon pancakes, which tasted more like sourdough pancakes. It was a nice leisurely breakfast and we caught up on a lot of what LG was up to.

In the afternoon, Hubii and I had the pleasure of going to our first robotics tournament with D and L. D works with a local high school to mentor their robotics team. It was lots of fun seeing the robots in action, and even more fun was the fact that D's team completely dominated the tournament. Well actually the alliance completely completely dominated. The robots from each high school worked in an alliance with two different robots against other alliances. It's fun to root for a winning team :)

Finally, we went home and got ready for the main event: the wedding of JG to HH! The whole event was beautiful. The weather was pleasant, there were flowers in bloom over the gazebo where they said their vows, the bride looked radiant, the groom was handsome (with his dashing batman belt buckle). It was just so beautiful. Then the bride and groom recessed down the aisle to Journey's Don't Stop Believing and I could have just burst there. I love that song. Just thinking of it now is making me tear up.

Here we are before the reception with D and LL at the far end and another friend BC who is getting married soon!!!! Thank you, D and L, for putting us up for the weekend. I love spending our time in Atlanta with y'all :)

Here's another picture from the wedding, cake was delish, but the groom's cake was a tiramisu style cake and I probably had too much of that.

Well, we made it home safely today. The leaving was really poignant for me. I missed all the friends I saw while I was there and Atlanta just looked so beautiful this weekend. Staying in D and L's midtown home made me miss living in a city. I know Hubii misses his friends but I feel like he doesn't miss their constant company and is happy with keeping in touch long distance. It makes me sad to think about the things I miss in Atlanta so I have to think about the positives here in Kansas City. Hubii is doing work he likes, we are close to his sister and her family, spring is coming (or is here) and farmers markets will be popping up all around us and close to our home and we have a wonderful home that we can feather and nest for our little Babii. And I know that no matter where we are, if we are together we can be happy :)

Spring break has begun, for some people

So another, Sunday another post. This week has been crazy!
Hubii left on Wednesday to attend the SIGCSE (Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education) Conference in Dallas. He got back last night but he now has a cold :( Thankfully Hubii is off for Spring break this week so he has time to recuperate. We were supposed to go for a walk with the Hike of the Month small group at church, but Hubii skipped out. Good thing he did it was cold and not too pretty.
It was kinda good to have the house to myself/ be alone because I was able to do a lot of school work. I stayed on campus later and came home to Pasta Roni dinners (Don't worry I threw in lots of spinach to offset the unhealthiness).
We did some dissections in our lab on pigs' legs to help ease our undergrads into cadaver testing. Also we use it to introduce the different muscles (pigs have similar muscle structure to humans). I was supposed to help lead that, but really I know less about anatomy than they probably do (being 10 years removed from my last biology class). Thankfully, we have a masters student with a biology undergrad working in our lab.
Yesterday, I helped my advisor with a Technology and Tea event on Campus. We had 6-8th grade girls come and participate in different engineering workshops. We tried to do a Lego Mindstorms project. We had them build the basic robot and then gave them the obstacle and asked them to modify their robots to get past the obstacle. To keep it simple, we just had different boxes that the girls had to try to escape from. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time and no one was able to get out of the boxes. But it was fun, and a little relaxing to not think about school work or research.
This week is the first proper ultrasound appointment at the OB. Maybe I will get some pics to put online and make this blog more exciting. I know just talking can be boring, and I don't know how to write to be interesting :P

Maybe I will be better at this?

So, I am pretty bad at keeping in touch with people and calling and emailing. But there are some nice people out there who are still my friends. And since I am preggers and all I thought it would be nice to track things and share, since it is the thing to do and people ask and want to know about pregnancy stuff. Sooo, I am gong to commit to posting once a week, Sundays from now till the baby comes.
So how are things going?
With the baby:
I am now on (wait I need to look this up online) week 20. I have gained 9 pounds since my first weigh in at the doctors (which does not include the immediate binge I went on when I found out I was eating for two).
Our home has exploded with baby books. As soon as I found out I was pregnant I pretty much requested every book I found on my library's website that dealt with pregnancy and babies. I have been told not to read more than one 'all you need to know about pregnancy' book because the contradictory information will just confuse me. Well my friends, they do not know me and perhaps are not familiar with cognitive dissonance. Holding contradictory beliefs in my head at the same time is my speciality.
I am reading the ever popular What to Expect When You Are Expecting, I was loaned I'm Pregnant by a friend. I also tried to listen to Your Pregnancy, Week by Week as an audiobook, but it made me nauseous. I have books on delivery Easy Labor, Your Best Birth, Pushed and even Hypnosis for a Joyful Pregnancy and a Pain-Free Labor and Delivery (I like to have all my bases covered, consider me the Unitarian of birthing techniques). I haven't read them all, but most of them are partially read.
I just got Hubii a few books on being a Dadii. Hope he enjoys reading them, I just got what the library had, not the best selection but better than nothing. Or maybe ignorance is bliss and he should just stay unjaded for as long as possible.

With school:
argh, it's tiring. I am officially registered for 2 classes plus research, but I am also taking one class unofficially and getting credit for it later. Plus I am TAing another class. It's crazy and tiring and my Advisor wants me to get all my testing done this semester (i.e. by June) before I go off to have the baby. I feel like I spend most of my time doing HW. It's crazy and I feel overwhelmed, like I am not going to get it done.
Hubii is busy with school. Planning, grading HW, writing exams takes up most evenings. But at least we can relax on Sundays. After church we come home and Hubii relaxes by playing video games. Currently he is playing Shining Tears on PS2. I can't get into it so much because the text is so small, but he likes it so far. This Friday we had two friends over and played Dominion with them. It was fun, hopefully we can do it more often. I am really looking forward to the summer, classes will be over for the both of us and we can just be lazy.
Well, that's a recap of the last few months. the following posts shouldn't be such a deluge.

Lots a pics

Ok, here are the pics that I had promised in the previous post.
This was a lemon cake I made courtesy of Martha Stewart for Easter dinner. Unfortunately, in the process of making a lemon syrup, the acid corroded my wire whisk. I then used the metal whisk in my lemon curd, which not only further corroded the whisk, it also left a very very very strong metallic taste in the curd! When did I discoer all this? Only once the curd was mostly thickened. So what did I do, throw it away and start from scratch? Of course not! I just used it anyway and hoped that the lemony taste of the cake would mask the iron-y taste of the curd. Was it successful? Well, I wouldn't really serve this to anyone else, but it is quite satisfying.
I don't get too gushy online about how wonderful Hubii is. But I thought that he deserved this one. I was having a hectic/ tough week at school so Hubii made me a delicious dinner of Mushroom Stroganoff. He also did something else super nice, and I said I would gush about it on facebook... but I forgot. I am truly fail at gushy facebook wife.

Smile Chef Hubii

This is just a cute supper I thought I would share. As close to breakfast for dinner that Hubii will agree to.
Say Happy 33rd birthday Hubii. Enjoy your cake. Unfortunately, it was from a box. This is what grad school does to you: It robs your soul.

It also pays for fun presents (really it does, at least untill I lose my 3.5 GPA)

So, at uni they stick all the grad students who don't have research profs (and some who do) into this one nasty dusty room. I thought I would try to brighten mine desk up a little with this cute mug that an old coworker made and that potted plant. Unfortunately, the mug was brought to its untimely end by an errant cricket ball. No I am not back in India but I am surrounded by Indian Grad students (whoda thunk it?) Some grad students were throwing around the ball and it strayed too close to my desk. Also, spring break was not kind on my plant. It's still alive, but probably on its last legs, roots, something.

When we went to Michigan we, we visited Hubii's Aunt MaryAnne. She gave us some paper lilies that did pretty well. They smelled quite strong though. Good thing that I like it, mostly.

So Pretty: they sparkle. If you click on the photo you will see it.

This is Hubii across the table from me at the Swanky restaurant that we went to for our 3rd anniversary dinner. I remember I got seared duck and... seared duck is pretty raw. I like to think of myself as a wordly foodie, so I chewed my way through a fair bit of it before my jaw and tongue begged for mercy. It was like eating a whole chunk of sashimi without soy sauce or wasabi and with the toughness of raw chicken. Anyways, we had them cook it a little more and it was delicious.
Here we are in front of a pendulum clock from the when Union Station was really a train station.
This is Winnie the poo. "What?" you say. Well this was a food bank event they had at the Union Station. It was a canned/ packaged foods scultpure contest.

This is a six pack. Very meta.
This is a Christmas pic that didn't make it into christmas photos. These cakes were baked by an elder at our church. He is one of the younger elders I think, maybe in his thirties. But he definitely doesn't look like a cake baker. He is bald and big and with a burly beard, he looks more like a hells angel in a suit. But these cakes tasted better than they looked.
The funny thing is, we asked him how we should cut the tree cake and he got confused. He said that he usually just drops them off and leaves. But they were delicious.

Hello My Name is Fuancime Wolfe

Hello all. Now that I woke James up an hour before he needed to be up this Saturday morning, I had time to upload all the photos I have taken recently. We will work chronologically backwards because I have more to say about things that are current.
First, yesterday was amazing! I thought it was just going to be a free dinner courtesy of one of Hubii's students who backed out last minute on a conference. Her name is really Francine and I have no idea how you can misspell it the way they did. Dinner was alright. As I was licking the last bits of my cherry cheesecake I wondered how long and boring the the keynote speaker would be.
I was soo off. The speaker's name is Dr. Carol Browning, who is a CS/ Math professor at Drury University. Which is pretty cool by itself, but she also worked at NASA Jet Propulsion Labs from 1987-1995. And she had some awesome stories. She talked about how the failure of Galileo led to the ubiquitous presence of smart phone. Galileo failed to open completely because some spines of its web became tangled and the next mission, Cassini, had the mandate of no moving parts. They had to find a way to create memory without magnetic tapes. They started to work with state of the art technology called solid state memory and the rest is history, as reported by twitter.
She had a lot of great stories. But I thought I would share this adorable video made from images from the Cassini mission. Sorry I wasn't sure how to embed an online video in my blog.
Dr. Browning's speech was very interesting and I was quite satisfied with it but then they said 'WAIT! We have one more thing for you. And now I will embed a video for your viewing pleasure.



I apologize for the poor quality of my cheap mobile phone video and for my childish exclamations. It was just sooo cool. I know... I am a 12 year old.

Buying a home

So Hubii and I have been trying to buy a house. We are trying to buy it in Platte City. buuuttt.... ugh, I hate buying houses. I should know, I have never bought one and there's a reason for it. How do I know that this exorbitantly priced town home is worth the money I am going to pay for it? I know I should look at comps but the only comp my real estate agent will give me are for the other town homes in this complex. I feel like I am pulling teeth getting comps from her. Sigh. This is majorly stressful. I don't want to be the cause of a housing crisis.
I just got some more comps from my agent. It seems that there are none. How do people justify selling this house at the same price as a year ago if they haven't sold it in a year. grrr....

Just so I am not the worst blogger out there

Hello,
I haven't posted in 3 months now. I have been very lame. I thought I would go back and put up pics that I missed but I can't. I have missed too much. We just have to go on from here. Sorry, the last 3 months will have to remain a mystery for you.
I am at school right now, taking a too long break. I am now a graduate student at the University of Kansas in the Mechanical engineering. Yesterday Hubii and I went to a pancake dinner for Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day or Fat Tuesday. Yummy. Today one of Hubii's classes is cancelled for the all school Ash Wednesday service. School is busy, but I like it.
:)
There, I posted. Now I can be less lame.