Living Large

Well, I had thought my next post would be pictures of the new house, but as it turns out, I can't seem to quit making messes long enough to take Southern Living-esque pictures of our new abode, so keep biting your nails in anticipation--the pictures are coming!

Until then, let's talk about living large.  (Of course I'm talking about my big baby belly.)  For your viewing pleasure:

22 weeks

24 weeks

26 weeks (in our new house!!!)

28 Weeks--It took me about 30 minutes to figure out how to make my camera take a focused version of this picture on auto-focus and time lapse shutter.  It involved putting the coat rack you see in the first picture where I stood while I pressed the button to focus, then quickly changing places with the coat rack before the picture took.  All this because my photographer (Dr. Jeffrey) had started his job at the hospital this week.

30 weeks (Is it just me, or did I gain about 4 inches of belly between 28 and 30???)

32 Weeks--and yes, once again I'm wearing scrubs, and not just because they're the only clothes that fit me right now.  I started my new job at 32 weeks pregnant.  Crazy, I know, but it's going well so far!

At the time of this post I'm 33 and a half weeks pregnant, and I can't believe we've come this far.  From getting the shock of my life when that test said positive (while Jeffrey was out of town, no less) to wondering if my little Sprinkles was a boy or a girl, to the appointment where we learned he was a precious baby boy, to today when I get to connect with him every morning as he stretches inside my belly while we wake up together. 

While we've had some moments of panic wondering how to fit this little man into our seemingly crowded lives, full of new jobs, new towns, new friends, and new challenges, we are so excited to meet our boy.  How can we keep from skipping with joy?!  Only a few belly pictures away from delivery, now!

Chicago

I am so far behind on my "backwards" posts that I will probably never catch up.  This fact, combined with my pregnancy brain, will result in the next few posts simply existing outside of time, because I can't remember what day the events occurred!  (Jeffrey is the king of remembering dates, but he's at work all the time now, so I'm on my own.  Apologies.)

With that said, let me tell you about our family vacation.  Once upon a time in the not so distant past, the Oglesby family and we went on vacation to Chicago, Illinois.

It took a while for us to get there because of a delay at the DFW airport that caused us to miss our connecting flight, but we arrived in Chicago only a few hours later than originally scheduled, and one rather long and smelly subway ride later, we arrived at our hotel on State Street.

The first night we walked down to Navy Pier and saw the city from the water.  Beautiful!

After all that walking, we decided that we deserved a piece (or two) of deep dish Chicago-style pizza.  We sent our delivery man (my dad) out to get it since the pizza place was only a block from the hotel.  We were shocked to see him come back huffing and puffing to carry two medium pizzas one city block--those pizzas were so incredibly heavy!  Chicago does not play around--when they say "deep dish" they mean DEEP DISH.  If you see my dad now, about a month later, make sure to ask him if his arms are still sore from carrying those pizzas.  He'll probably say yes. 

The next morning we decided to see as many of the "must see" attractions as possible, which is a plan that works out well in Chicago because many of the museums are near each other.  Unfortunately, our crew was feeling a little under the weather, so our walking was a little slower than it should have been.  My sister was still trying to pass the kidney stone that was bothering her at Jeffrey's and my graduation, Jeffrey and Greg both had bad sinus infections, and I (of course) was pregnant and had a little stress fracture in my left foot.  We were a sad bunch of tourists, but everybody toughed it out and walked the 2.5 miles to the museum area, stopping to admire a few of the huge buildings and other sights along the way.

We all needed neck massages after walking around in downtown Chicago--so many great buildings to admire!

Our walk was totally worth it--we got to see the famous statue called Cloud Gate...

Look, Carter went to Cloud Gate!

Millennium Park...

The Art Museum...

Bueller?  Bueller?  Bueller?

The Aquarium... 

The special exhibit at the aquarium was a jellyfish exhibit.  Doesn't this look like a screensaver?

And the Field Museum, all in one day!  (No pictures from the Field Museum...it was the last one and I was just too tired to take any pictures.  Lame.)

Random funny story from the day:  We stopped to eat lunch in Subway, and my poor sister (still trying to pass her kidney stone) needed to use the restroom.  She walked directly back to the restroom of the tiny restaurant and noticed that the men's was closed, and when she knocked on the women's door a man's voice said, "Occupied."  She came back to order her sandwich, then went back to wait at the door of the restroom.  Then she waited, and waited, and waited.  In fact, she waited while the rest of us ordered and ate our sandwiches.  Finally, after 20 minutes of waiting, she told the manager of the restaurant what was going on.  He knocked on the door and politely but firmly told the man there were other customers waiting to use the bathroom.  The man said he would hurry (although all of us were starting to wonder if Leslie would want to *ahem* follow that act), but was still in there 5 minutes later when a group of twenty-somethings came in.  One of the girls came back to use the bathroom and Leslie told her what was going on.  The girl immediately took care of the problem, in true Chicago style:

BANG! BANG! BANG!  She pounded on the door, then yelled, "Hey!  Other people are waiting here so you can just take your poop somewhere else!"

If I had been in there, I would have stayed inside dying of embarrassment, but the man finally came out and made a quick exit while the girl glared at him.  Crisis averted.

The next day we visited the Museum of Science and Industry...

Jeffrey loved seeing the captured German submarine from WWII.  I mean, Captain Jeffrey.

Dad reenacted a scene from his childhood:  When this moon rock was originally brought to the museum, my dad was a young boy visiting Chicago.  A photographer snapped his photo looking at the moon rock and published it in the papers.  Reliving his glory days here!

 and the Sears Tower.

The view from the top.  Jeffrey and Courtney were brave enough to walk out onto the plexiglass outcropping...I was not!

We also watched a Cirque du Soleil show down on the Pier.  I had approximately 19 heart attacks watching tiny little girls stacking on top of each other and balancing on chairs--I kept thinking I was going to have to go on stage to give CPR to one of those poor little things if they fell!  Honestly, it was an incredible show--the kids are so talented who do it, but I will NEVER let my boy Carter try such dangerous stunts!

That night we ate at a grill nearby the hotel.  The night wasn't really going well because our waiter was far more concerned with another table than making sure we had frivolities, like water, but the evening was saved by a very unusual event--a naked bike ride/protest.

Apparently the hundreds of riders in the buff were protesting for gay rights (seems like they should have been protesting clothes, right?), and the funniest part was that tons of them were wearing backpacks!  No shoes, no shirts, no underwear, no shoes...but backpacks.  I guess they brought bail money in case they got caught by the police.

Umm...I didn't take any pictures of this sight either...sorry.

The next day we did a little bit of shopping before heading back to the airport to go home.  It was a great trip in a great city.

Fed Up with Fed Ex

So, as I mentioned in my last post, there was a sinister undercurrent going on beneath all the excitement of the graduation parties and baby showers of the past couple weeks, and its name was "Fed Ex" (we now consider this to be the new, more horrible F-word).

Jeffrey and I needed a co-signer on our loan for our house because we needed to close on June 1st but I didn't have a job when they were drawing up the papers.  My parents offered to co-sign on our loan so we could go ahead and proceed with buying the house and moving in.  This created a few extra steps in our loan process since we had to prove income/assets/liabilities for all four people involved, although this task was made easier by the simple fact that Jeffrey and I had no income or assets--only liabilities.  Ha!

The bank got all of our information and then sent a few final documents to my parents to complete and Fed Ex back before closing on June 1st.  My dad finished the papers and took them in person to the Fed Ex office in Abilene on May 24th.  Since it was late in the day, they told him it wouldn't ship until the 25th, but they guaranteed that his "overnight" fee would result in the package arriving either the 26th or the 28th.

Five days and seventy-six calls to Fed Ex tracking and customer service departments later, Fed Ex finally managed to locate the package (that one of their drivers had sloppily shoved between the seat of his truck for a few days and thus not delivered) and got it delivered--almost a week late.

Because of this delay in the papers, the bank couldn't send the closing documents to the IRS or to the underwriters.

Because they couldn't finish the closing documents by June 1st, the previous owners went on vacation to Hawaii and would have to sign the closing documents there, find a notary there, and then Fed Ex them back (creating a few more days of delay).

Because we couldn't close on the 1st (but had to be out of our rental in San Antonio on May 31st)--Fed Ex had caused us to become homeless.

The only real option was to move into the house on the 1st and pay a daily rent to the previous owners until we could officially close.  This cost us about $500 in rent.  Ouch.

I called Fed Ex 9 million times to see if they would compensate us for the money we lost due to their mistake and was given the same party line every time:

"It is not Fed Ex's policy to compensate for damages due to delay."

I tried every attempt at reason with every level of employee at Fed Ex to plead my case.  I told them it was a bad policy.  I asked them if they thought it was good business not to fix their mistakes.  I begged.  I argued.  I groveled.  All to no avail.  After I reached the highest level of employee at customer service and she told me very sweetly for the 300th time: "It is not Fed Ex's policy to compensate for damages due to delay,"  I pulled out the big guns...

"I just don't know how I'm going to pay,"  I cried, "And I'm pregnant and just graduated and we have so many loans and I just don't know what to do."

Never underestimate the power of a pregnant woman's tears--the Fed Ex lady broke from script and finally gave in.  Her exact words were, "As you know, it is not Fed Ex's policy to compensate for damages due to delay, but perhaps as a gesture of goodwill the company can compensate you for some of the money you lost."

Bingo!

(But seriously, don't ever use Fed Ex.  UPS only, folks.  That's the moral of the story.)

School is Cool; Jobs are Kooler

Monday, May 28th
Jeffrey and I frantically alternated between packing and cleaning the day after graduation.  We loaded up Jeffrey's parents' flatbed trailer, my parent's suburban, and my grandparents' motorhome with almost all of our remaining stuff.  (Our motto was "Uhauls are for suckers.")

Once the furniture and boxes were all loaded, we all drove to Rogers where Grampy had fixed a Memorial Day meal for the entire moving crew.  Grilled BBQ chicken, sweet corn on the cob, fresh from the farm salad--delicious! 

The move in crew all went to their respective homes by late afternoon, and Jeffrey and I drove back to San Antonio because...

Tuesday, May 29th
I got an interview!  A new Kool Smiles dental office was scheduled to open in July, and a recruiter had contacted me about the position.  This was such good news because up until this point the job prospects for me in Temple had been sparse, and I was starting to feel very disheartened.  I never understood the desperation and helplessness one feels during a difficult job search, but I do now.  The only caveat to this interview was that I needed to go to Dallas to meet with one of the supervisors.  Nevermind that I had just been to Rogers and back, had a baby shower, graduated, and watched my husband graduate.  When they said, "Interview;" I said, "How high?" To Dallas I drove on Tuesday, and stayed with my grandparents that night.

Wednesday, May 31st
I interviewed with a dentist who has worked with Kool Smiles for many years and who was very kind.  So many people were praying for me during this interview, and I know those prayers were heard because the interviewer and I had so much in common (including a background in the Church of Christ), easily talked to each other, and the interview concluded with him saying, "I'm going to call the corporate office now and give you my highest recommendation.  I expect you will have a job offer by the end of the day."  I've never heard sweeter words in my life.  After the interview I drove to Temple to meet Jeffrey (he had had to stay in San Antonio to meet the carpet cleaners and do the walk-through with the realtor prior to move-out) because the next day we were scheduled to move into our new house!  Late Wednesday night I did, indeed, get a job offer from Kool Smiles.  Spoiler alert--I took it!

There is one part of the moving story I haven't told you, mostly because it deserves its own post--coming soon to a theater near you:  The Great FedEx Fiasco, starring Jeffrey and Lauren Edwards.