It's a Boy!

For those of you that haven't heard, we are expecting a baby boy on January 6th. We are very excited to have our first baby! We just announced it to our family this past week and that has been such a treat! As many of you know, we have not had a very easy time with pregnancy and so far so we feel extremely blessed everyday that our little guy is doing so well. We know many people have prayed and fasted for us and we are so grateful for your love and concern.
I just reached my 21 week mark. I'm sorry to everyone that has had a bad first trimester. I was certainly tired and sometimes just felt kind of yucky, but I really have no right to complain. Right now, I'm having fun just starting to wear maternity clothes. It seems a little more real every week.
Once again, thank you so much for all of the prayers. We have such wonderful family and friends.

Breaking Dawn review

I just wrote this review for Good Reads and decided to put it on the blog. I think I have a few "Twilight" fan readers of the blog. Plus I want my husband to read it. I love you, honey.

Breaking Dawn by http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/941441.Stephenie_Meyer">Stephenie Meyer

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Definitely my favorite of the four Twilight books. If felt to me that Bella had grown up considerably. Unlike the Eclipse, I didn't feel like strangling her for the majority of the book.
I was thrilled that everything really did end so beautifully and happily. Bella got everything she wanted and everything that she was afraid of losing. For a fantasy book, that was 100% okay with me.
I hope we get more books from Stephenie Meyer. As I'm sure I've said before, I don't put them in the great literature category, but they are fun. I've seen a few internet sites that question if Stephenie Meyer is the next J.K. Rowling. I don't think the Twilight series has anything on Harry Potter, the classic of our day.
I have heard from a few sources recently that Edward is destroying marriages everywhere. To this I say, that is ridiculous. It would be a problem if a woman really thought her husband could be Edward. Let's face it, wouldn't it be lovely if our husbands just had an endless supply of money and could spend all day and night developing their hobbies and worshipping us. But, I think some of us women need a romantic "fix" and Twilight, Pride and Predjudice, Jane Eyre, Romeo and Juliet, etc. are healthy outlets for that. I feel bad for women who compare their husbands to Edward and find them coming up short. We have to find out how our husbands are expressing their love for us and we may be surprised how much romance we find already exists in our marriage. I think reading about the romantic heroes takes a little bit of pressure off of our husbands. They don't have to stay up all night because they're so enthralled just watching us sleep. That's okay. Is my husband a sappy romantic? No. Does he spend his day doing whatever he can to make me happy? Oh my, yes! Way more than I deserve. He can absolutely hold his own with Edward.
I apologize for my soapbox. I just had to get that off my chest.

View all my reviews.

PS My blog does not seem interested in getting all of the hyperlinks on it so I apologize if this looks funny.

Memories

This is a fun tag that we got from Jeremy and Sarah's blog. It's by choice if you participate so there is no list.

If you don't have a blog, feel free to leave a memory any way. And don't feel obligated to do this on your blog if you leave a comment on mine.

1. Leave one memory that you and I had together, as a comment on my blog. You can add a memory about me or Michael since we certainly both enjoy our blog.

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll check to see if you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

playing the trumpet

Carter wasn't sure if he believed that grandma could really play the trumpet.

mom came over with Carter and Parker on Friday to visit and I got out my trumpet to show them how to play. They actually did get a sound to come out. They were pretty good. I'll try to post some video if I can get the videos off of the player without losing the sound.

golfing on Saturday

2nd Annual Beck Family Race

2nd Annual Family Race

Yesterday was the 2nd annual Beck Family Race. Eric and I planned the race and mom and dad sponsored it by providing snacks and medallions for all the kids.

I absolutely love watching how enthusiastic all our nieces and nephews are! Definitely not being a running enthusiast when I was their age (Genevieve), it is great for me to see them getting so excited about our little race. We had a quarter mile and half mile race and a mile race for the very ambitious at the end. I love cheering everyone in! They all work so hard to run as much as they possibly can. One of my favorite moments was watching two-year-old Cadan run as fast as his little legs would take him. He probably did about 1/8 of a mile, but he is off to a great start. We also have some awesome runners that I'm sure we'll be going to their track meets in a few years.

Way to go, guys! Keep practicing for next year!

Videos will soon follow.

Golf

Recently, I went golfing with the members of my team in the MBA program. I was hesitant to go since I hadn't golfed in about 11 years not to mention golf is not one of my favorite sports. I prefer more active sports like racquetball, soccer, football and basketball. Surprisingly, I had a fun time and my teammates were very patient with me. I even had a decent game. I've decided to give golfing another chance.

April Fool's Day!

I just had to share the email that my assistant Karen and I sent out to the professors we work for. I don't mean this to come out wrong, but I'm pretty proud of it. We really wanted to do something to acknowledge the day, but didn't want to do anything that would seriously panic anyone. We got a very positive response so that was great. This may only be funny if you've been a secretary or had a secretary so feel free to skip it if that doesn't apply to you.


Hello Professors,

After much discussion, Genevieve and I have decided there needs to be a few 5th floor policies that will be implemented immediately. To ensure our sanity these coming final exams, please be aware that the following will be in effect:

• There will be NO international faxes, particularly to unreliable fax numbers.

• Any photocopying jobs over 100 pages can be done by yourself.

• Please do not ask us if the mail has come. If you don’t have some ridiculous flyer in your box, it probably hasn’t.

• Post-it notes or highlighters can now be purchased at the bookstore.

• If the book we are photocopying from is an odd size, don’t count on having all the text on the page.

• If the lights in our office are off, and you hear some soft snoring, please come back later.

• We are happy to do non-final related projects during finals if we institute a chocolate/flowers tax.

• For the two weeks of finals, we will not be able to ever leave to office for lunch. We decided that a rotational system of ordering in lunch will be best. An email will follow about assignments for those two weeks. Some suggested restaurants for good lunches are Magleby’s, Café Rio, Tucano’s, Happy Sumo, P.F. Changs, etc.

• Should any finals arrive after the deadline, a monetary penalty of $15 will double every ten minutes. Checks can be made out to Genevieve Beck and Karen Sandstrom. There is no need to mention this to Lisa Cope or Tawna Fowler.

Thank you for being flexible about our new rules. We are excited to see them in effect.

Karen and Genevieve

Take the Quiz here!

California!

We went to visit my mission this past weekend. Anaheim is a great mission to visit. We stayed with my dear friends the Griffins. They were so welcoming and we had a great time with them. It was fun for me to have them and Michael get to know each other better. I obviously can't tell where the camera is, but this is Susan and Craig and their youngest son Daniel. The oldest son, Aaron, is at BYU now. I served in their ward for about five months on my mission. They adopted me and we were fast friends. It was Susan that introduced me to the eating plan I follow. She's really been a life saver for me. We loved being with their family. They are very open, loving people. We had a lot of laughter on the trip. We also got to visit a couple of the wards I served in and that was wonderful. The last area I served in made us feel especially welcome and it was great to catch up with so many old friends.

The Newport Beach Temple was beautiful! It was being built during my mission, but I'd never gone inside. I loved the mini-temple. It was so beautifully efficient. This was definitely a highlight of the trip.
















These are two favorites that were a must-go for Michael and me. We just don't get fast food like this in Utah.

Probably our biggest day was Monday where we spent the whole day at Disneyland! I love Disneyland. I don't think I could ever get sick of Disneyland. Michael is also a big fan so we had a great time together. The last time I went was on my mission on my last p-day. Believe it or not, as fun as that was, it was nothing in comparison to going with my husband. We had such a great day! When there are just two adults, it is amazing what you can fit in! We went to both parks and got to go on all of the rides we wanted to and then some. We were masters at the fast pass. I think some of our highlights that day were Tower of Terror, Soarin' Over California, Indiana Jones, the Bug's Life movie, Space Mountain (they actually had to stop the ride for a little while and turned on all the lights. It was interesting to see how it really looks and then they let us ride again without waiting in line so we thought that was great!). I always love Splash Mountain and am so enchanted with the parades. Disneyland really has it figured out. It's clean, professional, creative, and we loved it.

Tag I'm It

I would like to say that this is my first official act on this blog without my much more technologically savvy, wonderful husband with me. We spent some time last night covering the basics so I think I'm pretty excited to get into it now.

So...A: The rules of the game are posted at the beginning. B: Each player answers the questions about themselves. C: At the end of the post, the player then tags 3 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

10 years ago: That is February 1998--I can't believe that was ten years ago. I was a sophomore at Alta High School in Sandy, Utah and loving it. I had a wonderful group of girlfriends that I'm still friends with today. I definitely had not mastered driving at that point, though I had probably failed my first two tests (the instructor just said he couldn't pass me if I ran two signs and a light, picky, picky).

5 things on my to-do list today: After I get home from work, fix dinner for tonight and at least one other day this week, practice the hymns for this Sunday (I was just starting to get comfortable playing the organ, but have been getting a few hints that pedal use might be nice), exercise, journal, and get to sleep early.

Snacks I enjoy: Since I don't eat flour and sugar, I'm going with snacks I enjoy and can still eat. I love edamame, Weight Watchers yogurt, cheese, oatmeal, pumpkin, squash, and potatoes. I'm actually working really hard right now to limit the snacks in general, but these are some favorite foods.

What I would do if I were suddenly made a billionaire: Pay off Michael's school, go back for a Master's, buy a house and an apartment complex in Provo, Utah, take a year tour of Europe, and go crazy investing.

5 places I have lived: Midvale, UT; Spanish Fork, UT; Provo, UT; Draper, UT; London, England for a semester and Orange County for a mission.

5 Things people don't know about me: That's hard--I'm somewhat of an open book. I have a love for "systems" (the best way I can describe it)--I always loved registration for school because the process was so fun for me. Now in my job at BYU Law School, I loved getting finals ready because it was such an orderly process. Number 2 is I like following systems more than creating them--thankfully, my true love has that gift. Number 3 is that two of my greatest heroes are Ardeth Greene Kapp and Marjorie Paye Hinckley. Number 4 is I don't think I will ever get over the fact that Miss Utah didn't win Miss America this year and I feel that my two favorite childhood tradition shows (Miss America and the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade) have completely lost their appeal. Number 5 is my favorite seasons are autumn and spring; I think change is exciting.

I am tagging: Vanessa, Hannah, and Sarah

This is our youngest nephew Bradley. We saw pictures of him at his house playing in the tupperware drawer so when he visited us, I couldn't resist opening ours up. He had a great time. It is so fun to watch him entertain himself with such simple things. He is such a good-natured little boy and so fun to watch.

Latin Dinner & Show

Michael and Genevieve at The Botanical Gardens - Curitiba, Brazil

Deuzelia, Ari, Rafael and Ana (family that I knew on my mission)

Christ The Redeemer (O Cristo Redentor) - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Michael and Genevieve at Iguassu Falls

Sao Paulo Temple - Sao Paulo, Brazil

Campinas Temple - Campinas, Brazil

Campinas Temple - Campinas, Brazil

Churrascaria and Show

Iguassu Falls

Michael's First Taste of Coconut Water (Agua de Coco)

Genevieve's First Taste of Coconut Water (Agua de Coco)

Michael and Genevieve in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Genevieve and Michael just outside of the Curitiba Temple (in construction)

Botanical Gardens - Curitiba Brazil

Botanical Gardens - Curitiba Brazil