Santa Fe in pictures

Well it's been a long few days but a good and full few days. I'm typing this from the hotel room while I sit and wait for Ben to get back from his full day of meeting people and having interviews. Right now he's at some restaurant downtown with the marketing director. It wasn't really in the schedule to leave the opera, but the HR girl is out sick so things have been sorta thrown off anyway. This is all I know and Ben's been gone for almost 7 hours. I'm dying! But I did take a nice little walk today and explored the area around the hotel. Some of these pics are from yesterday and Wednesday as well.

The drive was actually really enjoyable. I watched two movies, took two naps and enjoyed the beautiful nature around us for the first part of the drive. The second half was rough with bumpy highways but we managed and our car has been PLUSH which this pregnant woman appreciates! I'll admit every time I had a Braxton Hicks contraction I mini panicked afraid I was going into labor...but that's everyone's fault who psyched me out that this baby was going to be born on the side of the freeway. He's STILL in my belly people! :-)

We had to stop for about 20 minutes due to some AZ road construction and I got some pretty pics of the surrounding beauty as well as of our nice rental car.

Our first exposure to New Mexico was a little shaky...we stopped somewhere to pee. It was called Gallup, the first city we came to after AZ. I went in to the Shop and Stop to find a bathroom...it smelled like D.I. (which isn't bad I guess cuz I shop there a lot haha) and I was the ONLY white person in the place, just a little weird culture shock. And the back had a burrito stop or some sort. Ok so that was different....and we just felt SO out of place. We kept going though and it got more charming as we went on. We arrived just as it got dark in Santa Fe which is sort of a bummer, we felt really lost and had no idea or sense of where we were. Thank goodness for GPS! My second impression of New Mexico was better...I went to the bathroom inside of a Smith's grocery store which is my favorite store in the world (really it is) and there were some white people this time! (Don't get me wrong I'm NOT racist just NOT used to being a minority! Thanks a lot for THAT Utah...haha) Ben teased that I'd be ok cuz Santa Fe had Smith's and Redbox. It didn't feel to different from home at that point. We got to our hotel which let's be honest was a BIT of a disappointment. It reminded me of a revamped Motel 6. It is a small room, a lot like a Motel 6 and at 36 1/2 weeks pregnant the most uncomfortable thing you can do is try to adjust to a different bed. OUCH. Bad night. And the floors above us are thin so we hear every step people are taking. Talk about a bad combo. We had a hard time sleeping and I woke up VERY puffy in the face the next day. The altitude difference and lack of sleep made it hard for us to want to explore too much but we did the best we could. We saw a few apartments and found a condo we can see ourselves squeezing into for at least the first year here. It'd be a big adjustment from our spacious townhouse in Cedar, but hey I'm willing to give it a whirl!

The people here have been nothing but kind and genuine. They don't stare, they aren't OVERLY friendly like I would imagine some other cultures are, but they are just nice. And it's hard to know the locals from the visitors because there is a balloon festival going on here and so a lot of out of towners. But our first night here we got free KFC because the employee charged our card for the wrong amount then just credited us and didn't charge again. She said dinner was on her...so nice!

It's so confusing trying to get acclimated with where I am and where everything is but hey we've only been here a couple days. We drove by the Opera and both of us felt a weird tingle but weren't sure if it was just our lack of sleep fuzzy heads or if this might really be Ben's job soon. Can you get jet lag from driving???

I can't get over how it looks just like St. George meets Cedar City in terms of the scenery. Some of these pics show what I mean. The yellow on the mountain I suspect are the leaves changing...just as they are in Cedar right now. The bottom right pic is of part of the Opera theater space. These pics are taken from the opera, it has a fantastic view!

The many beautiful flowers of Santa Fe...and even a yellowed cedar tree. Couldn't get enough of all the pretty flowers!

Some interesting sights I saw on my way back to the hotel from McDonalds today. I walked half a mile there to get a Big Mac..it equals out right?! The pic on the top right is one of the prettiest parts of the Railroad park...

The pic on the bottom right is a funny tummy shot I took. The bump is ready to burst! :-)

This beautiful and unique park is right across from our hotel. Ben and I discovered it last night when walking to the farmer's market that was just ending. It was so pretty and we got to see a beautiful sunset. I didn't have my camera but went back over today to take some pics. The bench in the picture is the one we sat on.

The park has some interesting things to look at from the giant metal dog, the metal dinosaur I didn't get a pic of, the bus stop bench and the trails. I walked by the slides and almost didn't realize they were slides!

Below is my little squirrel friend who seriously looked like he was posing for the pictures. He didn't move hardly at all. :-)

So here I am still sitting and waiting. I last heard from Ben over an hour ago...can't wait to know what is going on. I'm really glad I came with him and have really enjoyed the visit to Santa Fe. The weather is great here too! I just can't wait to get home to my sweet Connor. My mom has been such a champ taking care of him. She got strep throat the day we left and still took care of him without complaint. Desi has been helping a lot I've heard which makes me feel a little less guilty. I just keep telling myself that if we move they'll really miss him so hopefully even though she's been sick my mom has enjoyed her grandma time. It is mine and Ben's last time to really have some quiet alone time before Parker gets here too.

Mini update on Parker: Laurie asked if I wanted to be induced at 39 weeks. I only hesitated a moment before saying....um...yes? Why not! I think it's because she knows we may be moving soon and my first induction went really well. Since it's not my first time having a baby I guess I get to cheat the system a little! I'm SO ready to have him here. It's hard to not bend over, to have to pee so often and to just feel SO overtaken! I just really can't wait to smell him and hold him in my arms. There's nothing better! So for now unless he comes even sooner, he'll be entering the world on October 17th! YAY!

I'll post as soon as we know anything about the job! Until then....happy day!

Updates

Well it's been a slow summer for blogging! Ever since we graduated it has just been slow going for life in general! It has been really nice living with my parents and not having the sole responsibility of chasing after my toddler...honestly the best EVER! My mom is so helpful, as are my sisters and my dad at keeping up with his ever growing curiosity and craziness! He's such a busy boy, and I just love it- but it's hard on a mommy who's growing another baby! So here are some updates I don't really want to forget about this phase of life...

Connor learns new words everyday and I find myself having a lot of moments that go like this:

Connor: M nnn M...

Me: Yeah..M n M...WAIT did you just say M&M? ok then! Ha ha as he has chocolate drool coming out his mouth. Lots of his new words I am stunned to hear come out of his mouth because I didn't teach them to him directly. His favorite words right now are ANIMAL (he loves watching baby genius DVD's and his favorite one is Baby Zoo animals. He LOVES requesting the "Animals" every day. He also says piano which sounds like Mano- and he'll say it every time anyone is playing one. He loves to pound the keys as well. He says Bike a lot, because anything with wheels is a bike. Shopping carts, his toy lawn mower I bought for $1 at a yard sale, etc. He loves hair dryers and still calls them "ahhhh" because of the sound they make. He has always told long stories but I'm just now starting to understand them...like the other day my mom helped him get a drink at the drinking fountain and he got water up his nose. So for the next 20 minutes he told anyone who would listen about "Wah Wah...Nose..." and I was able to translate for him! I love knowing a tiny bit of what he's trying to communicate! He HATES nursery unless his mommy or daddy are in there with him. And he really doesn't even pay attention to us while we're there but he notices right away if we're gone. Still working on that one. He would have been FINE but his first week he went ALL the kids were crying. Hasn't happened since- so sad that it was a fluke day! He calls keys "larlhhh" or something. Not sure what he's saying...it's one of many words we have yet to figure out! He has the SILLIEST personality and loves to make everyone laugh. He swan dives off of things with complete faith that someone will catch him. I love it but it makes me nervous! He is climbing on everything, asks for everything either by name or sign language, and is OBSESSED with shutting doors, plugging things in, switching light switches and all other buttons that are fun to push. I'm exhausted just thinking about it but it sure is fun! I really do look forward to waking up to him every day and am so grateful to be his mommy. I love hearing him say mommy and wanting me to kiss his owies better.

He also LOVES to kiss my tummy and says "baby!" and pulls my shirt up (not always convenient in public or in church when I'm in a dress) and goes "mmmm---muh!" on my belly. I know his brother loves him already and seems to move more when Connor is making a lot of noise. :-) I can't wait to have two little boys that will be friends and play together!

In other news, we are on the job journey again! If you haven't read anything on Facebook I'll give a brief update. I haven't wanted to say a whole lot because of what happened with Yale...but things are at a point where we'd appreciate prayers and such next week! It has happened really fast- Ben submitted his resume after making sure with HR that the job was still open. He heard back from them very soon after, and within 2 weeks of submission he had already had 2 skype interviews and an invitation to come interview in person! So they are paying for him to come out- and since they are only 10 hours away and flights are complicated with short notice and end up not being much shorter, he volunteered to drive. So after much deliberation I am going with him! Yes...at 36 1/2 weeks pregnant I am going with him on a 10 hour drive. We are breaking it up on the way there but not on the way back. I just really feel like I should go and see the place we might be living and get a feel for it! So I have a doctors appointment Tuesday to make sure I haven't progressed at all yet, and assuming all is well we hit the road on Wednesday. They want Ben to sight see and get familiar with the area- good sign- and then interview and such on Friday- which will be when I have my own time to explore. We head back on Saturday and hopefully with good news and the baby still in my belly! :-)

**** I realized after Robyn's comment that I neglected to mention at all where the job was! Ha ha that was completely unintentional. I set the blog to private for the very reason that I could be a little more divulging of details! :-) The job is in Santa Fe, the company is Santa Fe Opera, the Met. of the west coast! Fingers crossed!

So that's the update...the job is fantastic and we have some great feelings about it...but we've said that all before so we are being very cautious! So that's my update for now!! One more month til baby comes...YAY!