The joys of older homes

For those of you who do not know, Tracey and I live in my parents house while they are on a mission up in Canadia. Do not take the rest of this post the wrong way, the house is great and we are extremely grateful to be able to live there for free. The house is an older home and as such, has random problems. The other morning I went downstairs to start a load of laundry and noticed water on the floor. I had flashbacks of a year and a half ago when tree roots grew into our sewer pipe and caused it to back up into the basement. When I looked in the downstairs bathroom, I wished it was something that simple.


As you can see from the photos, we had a leak that went undetected for a little while resulting in some damage. Realize this is also after a couple hours of cleaning. The worst was when I was trying to find the leak and hit the ceiling with a hammer. Water came gushing out the hole and luckily right into the toilet below. Anyway, these photos are a perfect example of the joys of an older home.

Pregnant Fun and Food

Tonight was the night that Ben realized that the pregnancy was in full swing. One sign may be that I watched the video in Ben's previous post and almost started crying because I love it so much. I think that the realization really started when I began pouting because the thing that I wanted more than anything in the world was a Weinerschnitzel Chili Cheese Dog. But alas, apparently pregnant women can't have hot dogs and Ben valiantly protected our unborn child from it's crazy mother. In honor of crazy pregnancy food needs I will provide you with various Hanson favorite food lists. Due to the overwhelming categories of food we will divide them up for reading ease.

Pregnant Most Craved Foods.

1. Cafe Rio (This was the first two months. I ate too much though and now I don't want it)
2. Cheese Enchiladas along side chips and salsa with a side of beans and rice. Heaven. Ben is starting to question the baby's ethnicity
3. Grilled Cheese
4. Soup- Tomato and Clam Chowder
5. Stupid hot dogs that I can't eat

Favorite Hanson Fast-Food- order differnet according to Ben or Tracey

1. In n Out- there is some debate as to where this would fall on the list if there were locations in Utah
2. Wendy's
3. Carl's Junior

Best sandwiches

1. Jimmy Johns
2. Gandolfos
3. The Philadelphian - only the greatest hole in the wall in the entire world

Greatest Saturday Morning Breakfasts

1. McDonalds -this one is so Ben
2. Einstein Bagels- Tracey's current morning love
3. Ruth's Diner- if you haven't eaten here, come visit and we'll take you. Yum-EEEE

Just for Tracey

Tracey and I were watching the Oscars and Amy Adams performed her nominated song from the movie Enchanted. This led to Tracey mentioning that Enchanted was probably her favorite movie of the year. Just for her, her is my favorite song from the movie

Fwd: You will never believe this!

The other night Tracey and I were having a nice relaxing evening watching the only thing on television, the Grammys, and the usual segment where they memorialize all off those in the music industry who have passed came on. We had both forgotten that the famous tenor Luciano Pavarotti had died this year. Of course, we immediately began trying to remember the name of the third tenor (to save you a trip to wikipedia I will tell you it is Carerra). Tracey began to relate a story of how two of the tenors hated each other and then one got cancer and went broke. The rival set up some secret fund to pay for his treatment and then they reconciled and had a litter of babies in the alps and had to escape from the Nazis during a talent show or something like that. I asked where she had heard this incredible story and if they had made a movie about that ending perhaps with one of the men being played by a nun. I was dismayed to find out that the source was one of my personal pet peeves, the email forward.

Now I am not opposed to the act of forwarding. I myself have often shared a particularly funny or ridiculous email but only if that email was written for me. I can confidently say that I have never received a chain email that was either so stupid that I sprained my superior oblique (an eye muscle) due to the degree of my eye rolling or just a flat out lie like this three tenors crap. It has gotten to the point that Tracey sends me the forwards she gets so I can go into mythbusting mode. Lets just say I have yet to see a forward that is actually true.

As always, if you do not forward this post to 10 people you will be haunted by the ghost of Moses or some crap like that.

Uh...

As I have mentioned before, Tracey absolutely loves The Hills. Personally I think it is staged and poorly acted but I decided to let her enjoy it without my complaining because everyone deserves a guilty pleasure. Personally I have lots of them: City Guys, Dead Man on Campus, etc etc. I thought the Hills does not hurt anyone, that is until I saw Heidi from the show has decided to attempt a music career. Her and her "fiancee" Spencer made a music video which has already gotten the pop up video treatment. Here it is for your viewing pleasure...

Pink or Blue at 7 weeks

So last night as I was scouring the internet for baby stuff (like I do every night) I came across the craziest thing. http://www.tellmepinkorblue.com/. Apparently, at 7 weeks they will send you a nifty little kit to determine your baby's gender. Here's how it works: you prick your finger with a little needle, smear your blood on a card and then send it back. They then examine your blood to determine if you have absorbed any little baby boy Y chromosomes. If you have, a bouncing baby boy is in your future.

Now all of you who know me even a little, know that I'm not so good at waiting for surprises. In fact, I was bursting with baby news the day that I found out about little "Bracey". (So much so that I announced before a couple of my more prego peer. Don't I feel sheepish!) However, even I draw the line at paying $245 to stab my own finger. We'll just have to wait for the ultrasound. Besides, finding out early would ruin the office pool on Bracey's gender. I will give you the run down on all the pregnant women in my life and the gender's of their little peanuts and you can guess for yourself.

Work friends (we're thinking of bottling the water and selling it to fertility clinics)

Julie- Due ANY day, having a boy
Dawn- Due in May, having a girl
Melissa- Due in June, having a boy
Brooke- Due in July, having a girl . . . we think.
Darci- Due in August, not sure what the kid is but Darci thinks girl.

Family

Katie (cousin)- Baby born Saturday, little girl!
Amy (cousin)- Due in July, I haven't heard what she is having but she already has three boys.
Margaret (Sister-in-law)- Due in August, not sure but she would love another girl but thinks it's a boy
Me- Due in September, Ben has retracted his original statement and now thinks its a girl

I'm not even going to include the 30 women in my ward that are pregnant! I'm just happy to have plenty of this friends for Bracey to play with!

Babies, Babies Everywhere

Isn't it funny that it seems like when one person gets pregnant EVERYONE gets pregnant! I swear everywhere I turn there is a pregnant women. It's so fun! I work with a couple of other pregnant women so it's nice as the newbie to be able to ask questions and see how everyone else's pregnancies are progressing. Here is a picture of our little peanut/alien/gummybear. Not much to look at yet but we're just happy it has a head and a heart (and a tail according to Ben).

I was super sick this morning but I can't complain because it has been a relatively easy pregnancy so for. The strangest thing has been how pregnancy has effected my eating habits. The first 2 months all I wanted to eat was Cafe Rio and grilled cheese sandwhiches. I also ate an entire bag of Oreos almost single handedly, most of it at 3:30 am over a couple of nights. Poor Ben is getting tired of planning things for dinner and me coming home and saying, "I don't feel like eating _______." It's shocking that I've only gained a pound and half. I'm sure I'll have exploded by next month.

Just terrible

Yesterday (Friday) Tracey's office had their end of the business year celebrtion and this year instead of having an awesome party with a terrible gameshow, they had a luncheon at the Market Street Grill and they did not invite spouses (thanks a lot BMW bank jerks). After the lunch, they let everyone go home early which left Tracey and I, a free late afternoon. I let her choose which movie we would go to and because she is a girl, she chose 27 Dresses. The movie was pretty by the numbers up until Cyclops uttered a line to Gummy Sue at the climax of the movie that almost completely ruined the entire movie. After someone pours out their heart who would just say "get over here". It really joins the ranks of the worst lines at a crucial moment in a movie. I know they are the worst because when I repeat them to Tracey I get punched. I will recap just a few.

1. "We are the island"- This is from the completely terrible movie, The Island. Actually this was the first movie quote that got me punched. I guess it is supposed to mean that then knocking boots is paradise but it ends up coming off as stupid.

2. "Ditto" This one is from Ghost which I will honestly say, I only watched because it used to always be on cable. I mean there is nothing women love more than telling someone they love them and hearing "ditto" back. I am not even going to mention the whole Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg making out scene

This is just a small sample. I was going to include some stuff from Top Gun but the movie is obviously a love story between Ice Man and Maverick but not everyone might agree.