I am happy to say that I have finished sewing Sariah’s and Rebekah’s Tutu’s for Christmas! We leave tomorrow for British Columbia and my mom doesn’t have a sewing machine so I had to finish it before we left.

Sariah found Rebekah’s Tutu and put it on herself under the dress she was wearing. I never realized that she was wearing it until she showed me that she got chocolate on it (she was helping me make truffles). Oh well, I have laundry to do tonight anyways. As well as all the packing and cleaning. At least packing for my daughters will be easy just underwear, tights, socks, PJ’s and a few dresses each. That is pretty much all they wear anyways!

We are taking the long route to avoid the mountains so it will be an 18 hour drive!!!! JJ is determined to make it to Portland tomorrow night. Staying overnight in a bigger city will be better than some town with only one motel, I could find a bunch of new york hotel deals that would be a better deal than some middle of nowhere town in Idaho.

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I forgot to post my pregnancy update yesterday. I am 16 weeks and one day pregnant today!  I am feeling the baby move more often now, especially while lying down. It will be fun when JJ and our girls can feel the baby moving around! I have more energy now than I did earlier on in my pregnancy so I am putting that to good use by exercising.

I am grateful that we have the money set aside in our savings account for this baby’s birth so I don’t have the stress that I had while pregnant with Rebekah. I worked a call center outsourcing job in the evenings to help pay for the birth. The job wasn’t too bad but I really didn’t enjoy bothering people on the phone.

This reminds me that I need to look into whether buying a birth kit or purchasing the supplies separately would be the best thing to do.

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In October 2004 JJ took me to The Roof restaurant and then to the Salt Lake Temple grounds where he proposed. We then married in December 2004.

When we first got married JJ and I decided that for 5th anniversary we would go back to The Roof. It is very pricey but last week in addition to JJ’s graduate stipend the professor he works under paid him extra for some other work he did. The extra payment covered our anniversary date so it was justifiable, besides, fine dining once every 5 years is ok!

Afterward we walked around the Temple grounds and looked at all the lights. They do such a wonderful job with the lights!

Getting to Temple Square wasn’t so fun though. We dropped our kids off at my brother-in-law’s for him and his wife to babysit. What should have been a 15 minute drive from their apartment to our destination turned into a 1 and a half hour drive! The freeway was closed down so everyone was detouring into downtown Salt Lake City while there were several big events going on that night. Finding parking was awful and we ended up having to walk quite a bit. We tried taking the Trax but it was too packed for us to get on. I didn’t mind walking but my feet were sore by the time we got to the restaurant, wearing Naot shoes would have been more comfortable.

We had a wonderful date though and enjoyed spending time together and talking about our next 5 years of marriage. Our actual anniversary is next Monday so we will have to find something to do up in British Columbia on that day!

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Several weeks ago Quebec, Canada woman Nathalie Blanchard made headlines when she went public with her fight against Manulife, the insurance company that provided her with disability benefits for a year and a half because of depression. Manulife stopped issuing the disability benefits when they found searched through her facebook pictures and found her having a good time on vacation.

Whether Nathanlie’s pictures showed that she is no longer depressed is one question that some people are asking, whether depression should even qualify someone for social security disability is another debate that this story has sparked but the biggest question is how private are our facebook accounts?

Most people, including myself assumed that only friends and depending on your setting those in your network can view. I was surprised yesterday when I logged in to my facebook account and a new privacy setting box popped up and all of my information was defaultly set to “everyone”. I changed all of it to friends only. Hopefully this actually does make my profile private! I know I share information about my family on this blog but it is mainly vague information while on  facebook I share information only intended for real friends.

It is scary to think that insurance companies and governments can look at our profiles eventhough I don’t have anything to hide! I do however think that police should be able to look through facebook profiles to aid with investigations.

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I can’t believe that in one week from today we will be on our way to British Columbia for Christmas. I am ready for a fun family vacation but there is still a lot that I need to do before I leave. Like finish sewing my daughters Christmas gift. I’ve started on it but then decided to fix all my cloth grocery bags because I really don’t need any more plastic bags under my sink.

I am also wanting to put together little baggies of activities and snacks to keep the kids from getting bored. I would love suggestions for activities.

Our goal is to make it to Portland, Oregon the first night but that is a 12 hour drive so I don’t know if we actually make it. It would be nice if I could book a motel online so we don’t have to ask around at our destination for prices. I’m not a big hotel person, I always wonder if the blankets we’re washed before we got there. I do have to say that my favourite hotel I have been to is the Peabody Hotel in Orlando florida (you can see pictures at this florida hotels page. I was only about 8 or 9 when we stayed there during one of my dad’s business trips. I loved how at certain times they would have ducks walking around!

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