It's a Girl!

A girl turtle that is.

On Valentines just as I was about to put our romantic dinner on the table, I happened to walk past our turtle tank and glanced in. Then I did a double-take. One the bottom of the tank were 6 white spheres. I gasped. "What in the World are Those!" Josh jumped out of his chair and ran over to see. Michaelangelo, who we have been calling Mr. Turtle for the past 3 years has apparently a secret to tell us. He isn't really a boy. He has been quite offended by our gender mixing and would now like to set the record straight the he is in fact a she. Miss Turtle laid six eggs for our Valentine's day enjoyment.

Does anyone know what to do with turtle eggs? I sure didn't so with a little internet searching we discovered that turtles, like chickens, lay unfertilized eggs every spring once they are past maturity. They do not, however, care for them so it shouldn't have been that tramatic to take them out of the tank. They can lay multiple litters and as many as 30 eggs at a time. I guess this is something we get to look forward to every year from Miss Turtle.

We have been noticing some odd behavior from her for several weeks but didn't quite know what to make of it. She hasn't been eating very well, she has been basking for hours, and she has been frantically trying to get out of her tank. It all makes sence now! Poor Josh is now outnumbered by girls!

We're Growing!

(Me in about 4 months)

It is official, come September-time there will be baby crying in our house! I found out I am pregnant a couple of weeks ago but didn't want to post until I had told my work, which I did this week. We are so excited and a little nervous to have someone depending on us for everything. It will definitely be an adventure. Both of our families are very excited about it. Most of my family is hoping for a girl and Josh wants a girl really badly too. I am not really as picky. I am sure that either would be great for the first one. My official due date is September 10th so I get to be as big as a house all through the sweltering summer. I hope the air conditioning works really well in our new place!

Slacker!

I know I have been a slacker about posting, but life has been a weird combination of busy and not so busy that I have made all too many excuses for not posting some that I can talk about and some that will have to wait. So here is what has been happening in the Florie household since December.

Christmas: I know it is way late, but we had a wonderful Christmas in Utah visiting my family. We were spoiled rotten again, and enjoyed seeing our family and friends for the week we were there. We also got our family pictures taken in the freezing cold by Melissa which was a ton of fun! I love spending Christmas with my family. Here are some pictures of our nativity in the neighbors barn.

We always lined up on the stairs growing up and raced down to our presents, so we make all the kids do the same. I don't know if they are as excited about it as we were, but it is fun to relive the excitement of being a kid.

My brother-in-law's family had a gingerbread house making contest. Here is my brother-in-law's winning entry (so no one else spent nearly as much time as he did so it is understandable that his is the winner). It is a nordic chalet.
Me in all my glory on Christmas morning. I don't think I was expecting this shot.Moving: we moved from our apartment into our condo in mid-January and were amazed at the amount of stuff we have. I don't know how we got so much but I can't believe how long it took to move and how hard it was to find a place for everything. We are still looking for places for a couple of things so if you know any storage tricks, let me know. We had a ton of help moving and couldn't have done it without everyones help. It is kind of nice to finally live in a place you own, but that also means that if anything goes wrong, we have to fix it. Hopefully it will be smooth sailing. We are now officially urbanites. We both take the train to school and work and live in the middle of the highrises in downtown. It is different but I kind of like it for now.

LAST SEMESTER: Josh started his last semester of school in January and he is going to be busy! He has 19 credit hours and is teaching two classes and he is hoping to get straight A's this semester. He has done well so far and has gotten 100% on everything that has bee graded, but his first test is Friday and we will see how that goes. Cross your fingers for him. He is also trying to balance his school with being the ward Sunday School President and the Stake Sunday School 2nd Counciler. I do not envy him at all. So far he has been able to balance it pretty well, but it is still early in the semester. He is scheduled to graduate on May 14th and I can hardly wait.

He has also decided to put off graduate school for a couple of months to a year and see if he can get a better idea of where to go and what to study.

Happy Birthday to us! Josh turned 28 on January 30th and I turned 31 on February 3rd. We had a really good birthday. For Josh's we went out to eat at Joe's BBQ and had a delicious dinner. It is not a fancy place but the food is delicious. Then we had our b-day cakes at Josh's parents Super Bowl party. I made a six-layer red velvet cake that was divine-I just wish there had been some leftovers to take home! For my birthday my parents came in town and we went to lunch at a Thai place near my work and then I spent the rest of the day with them and went to ice cream at the Pink Spot. It was a really nice day and I completely enjoyed it.

Old Friends: This last weekend we got to go out to lunch with one of my old roommates and one of our favorite people ever. I didn't take any pictures though and I am very disappointed in myself so I will have to get one another time.

Last night another one of my roommates came into town and we got to see her again too. We love Jillsy!

That is what has been going on in our life recently and hopefully I will be a better blogger from now on.

Archaeology - Part 2

For my work sometimes we get to walk around in the desert and look for sites. I have been doing this for most of last week and here are some of the beautiful pictures I have. It was cloudy and rainy on Monday when I took this picture. This is my favorite picture. They have a dam on the Agua Fria river and the water backs up into these little streams. I think it is so pretty. It almost looks like fall with some of the colors.

We were climbing on a pretty steep slope and saw these kayakers and canoers below. I though it would be fun if I could find one of them who took a picture of us. The guy I was working with twisted his knee (he might have torn his MCL) shortly after this picture and we had to get one of the fishing boats to take us out of there so we could get him to the hospital. Lots of adventure.
We hiked up to this ruin to see what it looked like. There were probably 10 structures on the top of a mesa. It was so pretty. Me in all my field gear (i set my backpack down before here).
You can see the view of the Agua Fria river and the ruins from the top.

Two wild burros who thought we were going to eat them.

These are from another project I went on where we were working near an old movie set. The two guys are people I work with. I think they missed their calling as actors, don't you?

A moonrise over the Sonoran Desert.

As much as I get frustrated with my job sometimes, I really am lucky to be able to enjoy what I do most of the time. Who else gets paid to walk around the desert and explore.

GRE Day

Josh took his GRE (the entrance exam for graduate school, similar to the ACT or SAT) yesterday and he was so nervous this morning. It was really cute to see him worry so much. You get two of the three scores right after you finish so there isn't that much time to worry about it. He got a 580 on the verbal portion which is pretty good. On the quantitative portion (i.e., math and reasoning) he got a 730 which is pretty much amazing. He is on par with straight A engineering students. Hopefully his writing part will come back with a good score too. I don't really know how long it takes to get it back. Hopefully such great scores will help him get into grad school. Please vote in our poll to tell him where he should go! (I am rooting for U of U!)