Thanksgiving Adventures

First of all, I got some comments on the pregnancy counter saying Shara was due in a few weeks rather than two months. I am happy to announce that the counter is correct, but it's the font that is hard to read. The number 4 looks rather like a 1 so instead of saying 45 it looks like it says 15. Just wanted to clarify that. :)

Second now is a report on Thanksgiving!
To start off we were discouraged by our doctor to travel. He said any long periods of inactivity (especially sitting in a car) in the third trimester can cause blood clots. He said don't travel farther than 30 minutes away. We questioned him a little further and he clarified. He said if you do have to travel I suggest you stop every 2 hours and walk around for a few minutes. He didn't want to give us a blind blanket sweep and doesn't like to get after someone to keep them from doing what he thinks would be unhealthy. We were very grateful for his advice and decided to make our Thanksgiving trip anyway, though we planned to shorten it to make up for the long drive because of the breaks every two hours.

When we left, my father-in-law pointed out that since we didn't want to travel in December, we should stay longer in Wyoming. We thought about it and very much agreed, we made some arrangements and planned to come back Friday to hopefully give Shara some time to finish up her homework. It was a good decision to stay, though Shara didn't have enough time to finish things.

Traveling there was a little slow due to slick roads, and we actually ended up stopping about every hour. Not because of the blood clot thing but because the baby would kick Shara's bladder and make her need to go. It worked out and she got lots of walking time in the trip. :)

When we showed up at the ranch, we were all tired and glad to be done driving. Brandon was a touch cranky because he refused to sleep the whole trip. When my family came to greet us Brandon was rather bothered by all the sudden attention. But it started when my mom took him. You could see the light in his mind turn on as he remembered his Grandma from Wyoming. Then he saw his toy box and seemed to think "Ya, I remember playing there!" He asked to be put down and dug through the familiar toys then started to roam the house, pointing at things he remembered. He went around the corner and saw his uncle and shouted with joy and ran to his arms. He was shaking with excitement as Coulter picked him up. He continued his tour and he got to the bear rug hanging on the way and seemed to say "Wow! I remember him, let me pet him!" He had a great time petting and cathing up with the bear. :)

I got to spend most of my free time there cleaning up, organizing, and basically finally moving into the room we've been staying in for two years now. I did get to do some ranching on a warmer day. I spent the day chipping ice off of parts of the irrigation system and trying to get things put away so they didn't suffer further damage from the ice and cold. On the other days the temperature hovered around 0 degrees F and dropped below that several times. It made it hard to do anything outside but I had plenty to do inside.

Thanksgiving day was great, with the traditional lunch my family makes, and the gathering and visiting during the meal. We even had the new local English teacher and her husband come out and we visited with them a while. They seemed like cool people and a great addition to the Ten Sleep community! The day ended on a very sad note for Shara though as a rocking chair got moved out of the way and placed on top of Shara's laptop, breaking the LCD screen. It's now cracked and has odd colors and lines running across the screen but it worked out as the person who moved the chair kindly offered to buy a new screen. It's supposed to show up at the end of the week, then I'll get to learn how to change laptop screens. It seemed a simple enough process.

We took advantage of the Black Friday sales online from Amazon, Tiger Direct, and Newegg. I spent my Christmas allotment for myself and purchased a few new computer parts.

The trip back seemed even long and more tiring than the trip to Wyoming. We got back about 11:30 with a very sleepy cranky son34 and were very worn out ourselves. The house seemed especially cold which after I hauled everything in though seemed especially odd. I did some checking and found somebody had found the test button on our Heater's breaker and tripped the breaker sometime before we left. Luckily I had left the baseboard heaters on low and it kept things from freezing (and the fact that our apartment is in the middle of the building).

So, the trip was wonderful. We were so glad to have taken in. Also we were very glad to get the chance to dig up my old cell phone so Shara could activate it as hers. She has a phone again at the old number she used to use last year. Feel free to call or e-mail us so you can get the number if you don't have it.