And so it is

We are a bit strapped for cash these days (as I'm sure many others are) and I've been trying to think of things I could do to earn a little extra on the side while not having to pay a babysitter but I have yet to come up with some stellar ideas. I thought about tutoring in math but when I looked on KSL.com to see how many other tutors there were there were hundreds (even with teaching degrees like me) so that looked doubtful. So I'm asking for your help. Any ideas for making a little extra money or do you know anyone that is need of a math tutor? I'm licensed to teach grades 6-12 but would prefer not to tutor in Calculus. My goal is to make $500-$600 a month but anything would help.

I want to win

Argh

Well, I had a long post all finished but then my laptop decided that it would disconnect from the internet. Lame.

I will just tell you that Asher is rolling over. For the first time today he rolled from his back to his tummy and then back to his back. He's been doing each indepently for a while now. He's becoming more mobile everyday which is exciting and yet scarey. It's so fun watching him learn new things all of the time.

I liked this and this.

3 Years

It's our anniversary today and we've been married for 3 years. I just wanted to let Bryant know that I love him very much and I appreciate all the hard work he puts in to support our family. He's great and I know I take him for granted too often. So thanks, Bryant, for being you.



FYI: This picture was taken when we were visiting the 6th floor museum.

Bryant's dad let us borrow his super nice camera so of course we had to take pictures of the little boy so here they are for your viewing pleasure:

Good Bye Texas

Well its been a year since we moved to Texas and we decided to move back home to Utah since I am based in Chicago and commuting to work anyways. If I am commuting, might as well be from home right? Well, both Mindy and I have had a great experience here and will remember our time here for the rest of our lives. Maybe some day we will come back, who knows. The people here are great, I have had nothing but positive experiences with people, except for the ones that I will talk about later in this blog. The weather cant be beat except during the summer when its 110 degrees and your electricity bill is 200$ / month for a 1 bed room apartment that is only 800sq ft. (That happened to us not once, not twice, but THREE freaking months in a row.) BUT during the winter, if you even want to call it that, its just really nice. It may have got below freezing maybe 3 or 4 times during our stay here. It rains a lot during the winter, but that is fine by me. So since we are leaving, I thought I would share some of my most memorable experiences that I have had since I have been here. I am sure Mindy has had others, but I will list mine.

I will list them out, but they are not in any particular order...well except for the 1st one. Other then the 1st one, they are just in random order.

1 - Probably my most memorable experience here involves me almost getting beat up by a bunch of white trash gang bangers at a gas station.

2 - Me almost getting in a fight with some drunk guy at 3:00am since he decided he needed to sing at the top of his lungs for 15+ minutes.

3 - Going to a Fudruckers near our apartment and ordering a Pastrami burger. Needless to say, I didn't get a Pastrami burger.

4 - The night our child was conceived. (You can blame our neighbors for us getting pregnant. If they did not have such cute kids, I can guarantee that we would not have a child right now.)

5 - The birth of Asher. This probably should be number 1, but it was not nearly as funny or scary as number 1.

6 - Having my friend call me up and asking me, "Dude, are you moving to Chicago?" I said, "Of course I am not moving to Chicago!" Only to have him say, "Then why are you transferring bases to Chicago?" Turns out, I really was getting transferred to Chicago. On top of all of it, I ended up enjoying flying out of Chicago way more then I did flying out of Dallas. So in the end, It was definitely a positive mistake.

7 - Having someone join our family that I would never give up. My little puppy Buster. Who would have thought that having a dog can impact your life so much. He really has made our life much more fun and hard at the same time. Now that he is potty trained, and has been for a while, he does not require as much special needs. But he really is a sweet dog who just wants for us to be happy.

8 - Hanging out with our friends/neighbors Matt and Christina all the time. They will be sorely missed by both Mindy and myself. Of course, they are welcome to come visit us anytime, since they have free flight benefits too! I wont have anyone to talk airplanes with anymore, since both Matt and I worked for the same airline. I guess we will just have to continue to text each other, since Christina thinks that is what we do all day long.


Well, that is all that I can think of for now. If anyone shows any interest in hearing the stories on the first 3 experiences, I may type out the story. Some of them will be fairly lengthy, so that is why I didn't post them now =)

6 Days Later!

Well, It has been 6 days now since little Asher has come out and said, "Hey, how's it going down here guys?!" and things have been pretty good so far. We did have a little scare from the doctor (pediatric doctor, not at the hospital) tho. We took Asher in for a normal appointment and we had noticed that he was breathing out of his mouth kinda funky. Well Mindy had realized that baby's aren't supposed to breath out of their mouth. Since they have to use their mouth to suck down their food, they need to breath out their nose. At first the doctor said that it wasn't a problem and had given a second thought about it. They continued on their little exam (which is ridiculous for what they charge BTW) which included a weight check and turns out, Asher had lost a full pound. The doctor then started to get all worried, which worried us of course and we were not sure what was really going on. Doc then say's he lost a full pound from birth weight, that is WAY too much weight to be losing at this point in the game. So we need to have a serious chat about this. He then asks us if we were feeding him. We both were like.....uh, duh? Yeah, we want our child to starve to death and us have to listen to him scream all day and night while his little intestines eat themselves up to cope from the lack of food! Well he had been eating, but was probably not eating as much as he could have been. Due to his awkward breathing problem. So after he then realized that the problem was with his breathing, which we had told him in the beginning, he then started to scramble around even more telling the nurses to go get this, go get that. Mindy and I were still just lost as to why he was such a nervous wreck. Was our baby going into cardiac arrest in the doctors office? I don't think so, he was just chillin there laying quietly minding his own business. So the doctor had the nurses grab a feeding tube and some oxygen monitor device. He put the tube down his nose to see if either passage way was blocked or if the septum (I think?) had not fully opened on both sides. They were both opened. He hooked the oxygen tester up and of course I don't know what key numbers to look for. Well he wasn't getting enough oxygen (obviously, since he had a problem breathing, we already knew this) according to the doctor. They then dropped some Saline drops down his nostrils and some decongestant drops and had us sit around for 15 minutes in wonder at what was going on. Still, he had not told us what he thought was the problem, just that there was something wrong. Seemed like to me, he made a bigger deal out of the situation then was really warranted. Granted, Asher needed to have his nose unplugged...but, the doctor could have been calmer about the situation. At any rate, the drops unplug him and he stopped breathing out of his mouth almost immediately. So he tells us to go buy some over the counter drops from Wal Mart. Blah blah blah, tells us everything that had happened...then yeah..that was that. Left us kind of scared leaving the doctor's office. Well, that was on Saturday. We went back today and he showed up and was a champ. He weighed in at 7lb 10oz. 3oz more then he did 3 days before. So 3oz in 3 days according to the doctor is amazing! He was getting overly excited about it, it was hilarious. We were seriously at the doctor's office for no more then 23.5 minutes from the time we walked in the door to the time we walked out the door. That is including signing in, waiting for the doctor and making a return appointment. I wish I could charge that kind of money for my services! Anyways obligatory pictures.



Bust loves Asher!



Hello World!



Sleeping Asher

At Last! Finnaly Home

Well, we departed the hospital finally at noon today. There was a bunch of different people that kept coming in telling us to do this and don't do that. It almost seemed like they were trying to scare us about having a child at home. Oh, but before that, the Lactation consultant was in our room trying to show Mindy how to breast feed and whatnot, anyways, she was kind of annoying. She kept grabbing Mindy and trying to show her how to do it right and pestering the baby. He just wanted to sleep! He had just been circumcised and wasn't really interested in eating at that time. But she kept trying to make him. She finally left and after she did Mindy said "She was really annoying." Mind you, Mindy never ever says anything bad or mean about anyone. I was almost shocked! I just laughed. Anyways here are some pictures of the baby.



This was the first time Mindy held the baby.



This was about 2pm on the 1st of April after our friends had come over and seen the baby.



Me holding Asher




Leaving the Hospital all dressed up.

He lives (as a baby now)

Well 1005 cst Asher Gage Jasperson joins the fam. He's 8 lbs 7 ounces. When the nurse told mindy to start pushing it only took 20 minutes from there. She pushed like a champ and was done very quickly. I was really shocked because we pretty much waited around for 13.5 hours with little progression. Then shaboom here he is! Anyways no pictures till I get home to my computer.

12 hours later

Well, 12 hours later and still no child yet. She just got checked and she's dialated to a 9 now. They said probabbly start pushing in an hour. Luckily my good friend Matt has been able to go and check on the dog. I kinda thought we'd already be chillin with the little guy by now. But oh well. She got an epidural around 2 and has been sleeping a lot since then. Before the epidural, she was having contractions pretty regularly. After the epidural she kinda stopped having contractions and they kept trying to move mindy to positions that would help bring the baby further down. That took a couple hours to find a good position. Anyways my iPod is almost dead so this might be my last one for a while.

At the hospital

Well, we are at the hospital now waiting for the petosin to kick in. They said it could take up to 12 hours for the baby to peek out. I really hope that's not the case. We were both up till about 2am just talking before we are no longer single (in the sense that we don't have kids). So we are both tired. Oh and this little device can't take pictures, so have to wait till we get home to put them up. I'll have to go home at some point to take care of my little puppy too. Poor buster. Haha

Update

Lately, we haven't been doing much besides looking for a place to live. Nothing has really appealed to us so far but we'll continue looking. It's harder to find someplace in Utah because there really aren't that many rentals (here in Texas there are apartment complexes everywhere). Bryant spent about 3 days in Utah last week and found a few places that were okay but nothing really great. We've also been preparing for the baby. We are currently waiting but hoping that he doesn't come this week (my doctors on vacation and Bryant is going in to work on Friday). It would be great if he came on the due date but we're not holding our breath. I have a feeling he'll be late. If you notice any great places to rent let us know!

Surprise

Well, the plan was that I would work up until the baby came and save what money I made and try to live off of just Bryant's income but apparently we don't need the practice. On Thursday night I received a call and my work told me not to come in on Friday. I wasn't too surprised because it has been super slow at Honda Finance the last couple of weeks and they already let one temp go but it was a little bit frustrating that I wasn't given any kind of prior notice so I could make sure I brought everything of mine home with me. Luckily, all I had there that I really cared about was a water bottle and I can pick that up from the temp company when I drop my badge off. I guess that's what happens when you're a temp. I'll have plenty of time to prepare for the kid now. I'm excited not to have to work when Bryant's home but now I'll have to find ways to fill the time while he's gone (and of course he's gone for 6 days this trip which is the longest trip he's had for at least the last month). Oh well.

On a happier note, some friends from the ward threw me a baby shower on Friday that was a lot of fun. The food was delicious and the company was great! I, or rather the baby, got totally spoiled. Everyone was so thoughtful and we have so many cute things for the baby now. Everyone here has been so great and supportive, I'm really going to miss all the friends I made when we move. I think one of the girls took pictures at the shower and is going to email them to me so I'll post some of those when I get them.

EWWW....

I was standing in the grass with my mind off in space just waiting patiently for the dog to find the perfect spot to potty (he has to sniff around for at least 10 minutes). I feel him bump up against my leg and didn't think anything of it...but then I hear something that sounds oddly like running water. I look down and the dog has lifted his leg to pee...on me. SICK! I yelled no at him and hopped away. Luckily, none got in my shoe (I was wearing simple flats). I did however get a bit on my pants, which I washed, immediately. I guess Buster is preparing us for having a boy. Hopefully I won't get peed on by the kid.

It's been a while

For Christmas Bryant was able to get the entire week off of work and so was I (what are the chances, eh?) so we decided to go to Utah to spend it with our families. I had all these intentions of things we were going to do and people we were going to see while we were there and thought we had plenty of time. A week is enough to fit it all in, right? Nope, I was definitely wrong. We had a great time and I still don't know where all of our time went. We spent time:

Shopping
Cooking
Eating (of course! Christmas dinner is the best!)
Spending time with family
Playing games (Celestial Companion, Texas Hold 'em, etc)
Doing a puzzle
Opening Presents (and getting spoiled, thanks so much everyone!!)
Taking the dog out to potty in the snow (he loved it btw, I did the first couple of times but it got old)
Playing with the new puppy
Having dinner with friends (Thanks for letting us use your car Ord's!)
Relearning to single crochet around a blanket (Thanks mom! The blanket turned out really cute- as long as you don't look too closely at my poor job but I think I'm getting better ;)
Playing Bingo at the Whitings (thanks for including us, we had a lot of fun and the prizes are fantastic!!)
Going to the movies with Micquel and Jeff
Playing games at the Guymon's
Nikki's wedding reception

...and I'm sure many other things that we thouroughly enjoyed but my pregnant brain is a little forgetfu (much better than it was at the beginnning though).

Thanks to everyone that mad our Christmas a grand one!!

To you we didn't get to see (Sara, Lisa, our Willey friends, etc.) I'm sad we missed you but hopefully it won't be too long before we come again (maybe not till after the kid arrives).

Btw- Sara my phone died and I completely forgot to charge it so I didn't get your text until after Christmas so I'm sorry I didn't respond so here is a late Merry Christmas to you!! Good luck with your final semester, I know you'll do great and maybe I'll even be in Utah by your graduation (Isn't it May or June-ish?).

Sorry for the lack of pictures. Bryant and I are both slackers on the picture front and tend to end up with pictures of our dog (which who wants to see pictures of our dog?) or really lame random ones that have nothing to do with anything... We really need to be better about that.