My Little Tornado

I used to hear this common question: "How's work?" Now the question is, "How are you feeling?" Good news! I feel great! I never realized how TIRED I would be though, but it makes sense. I get tired walking up 2 flights of stairs so I can understand why I get tired growing a new little brain and other essential organs. (That's WAY harder than walking up stairs.) I'm over the morning sickness, which hasn't been too bad, but some days it was hard to stop pushing snooze and get up for work. I never called in sick though. When I did tell my boss I was having a little baby, she told me that she was just waiting for the announcement. She thought I was pregnant one day when she came in and said that I looked MISERABLE. (Everyone loves hearing they look MISERABLE, and I thought I was doing such a good job at keeping it on the DL until we were ready to tell people, guess not.) Needless to say my miserable days are in the past, I hope.

I didn't want to spread the word until we were far enough along and had told our parents. I learned quickly to not tell people I was feeling sick, because that's an instant lightbulb for YOUR PREGNANT! I found this out when my grandma called and wanted to know if we could come to Layton for dinner while she was in town. It was one of those not so great days (I'm loosing the MISERABLE word because it hasn't been) and I just wanted to lay in bed. I told her I wasn't feeling well and that maybe we could come over tomorrow before she left. Instantly she said "WHAT! You're not feeling well? Well Kimi that could mean you're pregnant! You better go to the doctor and see." I reassured her that it was "just a little flu" or something and that I would probably be better tomorrow. Two days later I get another call from my grandma (me lying in bed again) and she's just "checking up on me"- code for am I going to be a great grandma? I tried to sound chirpy and reassured her that I was feeling much better today. Ha I fooled her!

Reading and keeping up on weekly updates about my growing baby occurs almost every day after work. They say you should start feeling movement between weeks 16 and 20. I'm now 17 weeks! I had also read that most first time moms can't tell a difference between a gas bubble and movement. This weekend I was laying on the couch watching "The Sing Off" (featuring BYU's Vocal Point) and I felt something! It felt like a little tornado was in my stomach--nothing like a kick or jab and no gas bubble--but a little tornado moving around. That's my baby! The baby must either really like or really hate a cappella. I haven't felt it since but I'm hopeful tonight because "The Sing Off" comes on again. We'll see if my baby is destined to be a member of vocal point someday. (Or a hater of vocal point, lets hope it's the prior. If not, I'll teach it to love.)

♬ Sing Along with Us! ♬

♬Ben and Kimi, sittin' in (or leaning against) a tree. ♬

♬ K-I-S-S-I-N-G. ♬

First comes LOVE ...

Then comes MARRIAGE ...

Then comes a BABY in a BABY CARRIAGE!!!

Baby Sycamore will be arriving in March 2012!

(We find out the gender the end of October!)

CRAZY WATERMELON!

I planted this little guy back in June and sat back to watch it grow outside of my kitchen window. I haven't done a thing to it since (thank you automatic sprinklers). Actually this is a lie, there was a big weed that started growing next to it and Ben had to take it out. But look at it now! It's everywhere. My watermelon is OUT OF CONTROL!!!

It's growing over, under, and through the bushes, onto the air conditioning boxes, and taking up a massive amount of land.

Because of the crazy growth, Ben and I went to look at the situation and were going to pull the plant if no melons had started to grow yet. What we found was 6, not 2 but 6 little watermelons! As I was lifting up a vine off the top of a bush one of our melons fell off, so I'll eat it tomorrow!

I'm going to continue to sit back and watch those watermelons grow so I can eat them. Maybe set up a fruit stand and sell "organic" watermelons. My Dad is going to be so proud!

Caving

Today we headed over to the Timpanogos Caves. This is something that Ben and I have talked about doing for a while and lucky us, a couple in our ward invited us to join them :) The weather couldn't have been better and the trail was paved (my kind of hike!).

After our beautiful hike, we waited for our cave tour.

Only three cave rules

1. Don't touch the cave (This was the hardest rule to follow. I was temped every 2 seconds to touch the shining cave walls.)

2. Wear your backpacks in the front (check)

3. No eating in the cave (Because everyone plans a cave picnic)

Pop quiz: What's the difference between a stalamite and a stalactite?

All of the stalagmite (rises from the floor) and stalactites (grows from the cave ceilings) were temping me to just feel them, but I followed the rules and didn't kill the living cave with my human oils. Ask Ben if he followed the rules.

Inside the cave, most of the tour was along a major fault line. No need to worry though we were reassured it was very unlikely for an earthquake to occur.

Here we are smiling calmly during the mini earthquake.

Just kidding there wasn't an earthquake and we made it out alive! This was our 4th hike together and I think we're becoming pretty good biannual hikers.

Sweet Potato Summer

Blah blah, I have to blog at least once in August...right?

The most common question I get asked is, “ How is work?” Let me tell you. It has been a fun summer full of projects but the past 2 weeks have been crunch/stress time!! School starts tomorrow and 4 zillion billion-kitchen managers keep calling me so how am I EVER suppose to get anything done!!! This week will soon be over, school will start, and kids will get fed--delicious food I might add! Anyways, back to fun summer things.

One of my many summer work projects involved figuring out how in the world to use 19,500 lbs of sweet potato?!? (p.s. I have government commodities to thank for this project.) I bet you can think of two ways to use it:

1. Sweet Potato Fries (we already serve this)

2. Marshmallow Thanksgiving casserole thing (SUGAR OVERLOAD!)

Well think again. What I had to work with wasn’t a nice french fry piece of sweet potato or nicely pureed sweet potato. I was working with an irregular, frozen, quarter-sized piece of sweet potato. After mashing, boiling, steaming, baking, cinnamoning, cajoning, graving, sneaking, beating, corn mealing, and baking, 50 lbs of sweet potato later you get Kimi’s Sweet Muffin!! (I just name everything on the menu after me. We now serve Kimi’s fresh strawberries, Kimi’s mashy potatoes, Kimi’s crinkle carrots, and Kimi’s jiggly jello. Why not?) But seriously I didn’t want my name on the menu, but everyone in the office insisted it had the best ring to it. So whatever, I come in and name food after myself, wouldn't you? I am still quite worried about this because what if the children HATE, HATE Kimi’s Sweet Muffins? I don’t want that legacy!! The good thing is everyone in the office LOVED them, but kids are some of the hardest, most honest critics. Then again, I don’t know how the children won’t like them? I can’t wait (or dread) to see what the kids think about the muffins. I’ll let you know what I find out, but seriously they are the best tasting sweet potato infused corn bread muffins you’ll ever find, ask Aunt Jemima! And don’t judge sweet potato, it will come back 19,500 lbs later and smash you like it did to me!

Without further ado, meet the nice, delicious, individually packaged (legit) Kimi’s Sweet Muffin (you can’t name them Kimi’s Sweet Corn Bread, because supposedly the word “corn” deters kids from trying them).

Served with baked chicken, mashed potatoes, watermelon, and fresh sugar snap peas!

Other BIG work news...Meet my ride. I get to take this around when I travel to schools. I'll try not to detect your jealousy in the comments :)

Happy back to school week!

Let's Go Fly a Kite!

Want to feel 6 again? Then go fly a kite. We found the best hill with the perfect wind for the grandest, most awesome, dragon kite.

4th of July!

I know I'm a week behind in posting but it's been busy. Here is our 4th of July week, a week late.

Originally Ben and I had a rafting trip planned in Moab, but last minute it got canceled. So our plans for the 4th were toast. We quickly made new plans to go to visit Ben's family in California. We stopped in St. George to go to Tuachan and watched The Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid was my favorite show when I was little, this seeing this show was very apporopraite. I had this little mermaid doll where her fins would change colors in the bathtub depending on the heat of the water, and of course she sang! (ahahhhhhaahhhhaa!) In the show Ariel's fins didn't change colors, but they did have some interesting effects like, they flooded the stage with water! The mermaid costumes were a little funny/creative. I'll paint a picture for you, the mermaids wore black pants (to make their legs look invisible, but they weren't), heelys (to add the effect of swimming) and then tails that came out from behind them. I tried to get a picture but it didn't turn out.

After night in St. George we drove the rest of the way, with a stop at Tommy's original burger! Another childhood memory. Tommy's is my dad's FAVORITE BURGER PLACE EVER IN THE UNIVERSE! On our few trips that our family made to California, we would stop at the first Tommy's in Barstow. I think since my dad loved them so much us kids just loved them too. Ben prefers In-N-Out but this time we made a Tommy's stop because In-N-Out isn't a rare commodity in Utah anymore. The signature to Tommy's is the chili! You can expect to come away with a chili stain on the front of your shirt, it's messy but mm, mm, mm it's worth every bite!

After our lunch break it's back on the road and a few more hours until our SURPRISE trip. Ben's parents had no idea we were coming. All of his siblings knew and they get things prepped for us to come. When we go to his house Ben came up behind his mom and when she turned around, she was SSOOOOO SUPRISED!! A few seconds later his dad came in and was just was SURPRISED and excited for us to be there.

We had a fun time playing with nieces and nephews, going to the park, beach, and just hanging around the house! We celebrated the 4th of July and Michael's (Ben's brother) birthday while we were their too. I made the rice crispy pops and they were a great treat of the kids and adults!! I was so proud of such a simple little idea I saw in a magazine, and I have the pictures to prove it!

I'm experimenting with Picasa instead of individual pics. Here they are!