And so it Begins....

I dread this time of year. I start getting stressed weeks before, knowing that it's coming. This time of the year is when Scott has to go do open enrollment for his mining client up in Alaska--and he's gone for a long, long time. And I hate it.

Scott left this morning for Sun Valley--he has some conference there. He'll be gone for three days, which isn't so bad. But he'll only be home for a day before he leaves for Alaska, and he'll be gone 19 days straight. That's a long time to be without a husband. It's especially a long time to be without a husband when you have 5 kids and are 7 1/2 months pregnant. Then we'll get him home for 3 days, then send him off for another 5 days. When he gets done with all his traveling, we will only have 2 weeks before this baby is born.

We tried to get some fun in leading up to all this traveling. On Friday we got a babysitter and went out on a date (our first date together in months). We went to see "Inception"--it was a great movie. After the movie we went to a fun new frozen yogurt place. On Monday we went to "Build-a-Bear" in the mall with all the kids. Sara wanted to go there for her birthday, so we went and let her pick out a cute pink bear and a couple of outfits for it (she carries it around with her all over the house and even sleeps with it). On Sunday Scott and I spoke in Sacrament Meeting. We are both glad that's over with. Saturday was spent doing yard work and working on the window seat in the girls' room. Ever since we moved into this house, I've been wanting to build a window seat in their room, and it's finally getting done. It's on hold for the next month while Scott is gone, but he made great progress on it before he left. These pictures are mid-construction--Aaron crawled inside to read a book and fell asleep!