Thank you all

I wanted to thank you all for your congratulations on the upcoming arrival and for the birthday wishes I've received via phone, email, and mail. It's been about a month since I last wrote and a pretty uneventful one until this past week.

Dan has been busy with work, having projects in his lap as well as other people's projects he has to fix. On the plus side he has to use some of his vacation time or lose it at the end of the year which means that he's taken a few days off here and there. The first day he took off was this past Monday. It was so he could go to the Ob/Gyn with me... and that bring us to the exciting week we've had.

Sad as it may seem, we can already show off baby pictures and fully intend to do so. (They will be attached to the email and posted on my site for those who wish to view them.) During the exam we determined that I was approximately 11 weeks along putting my due date on May 22nd. The doctor also sent me to the lab to have some preliminary tests done. I decided to wait until Tuesday and was fairly glad I did. The nurse who took my blood told me that Monday had been really busy. Dan also took a long lunch so we could walk over and vote. It's very nice knowing that our voice counts. Even though we didn't know some of the people that were on the ballot we did have a basic grasp of some of the major issues taking place in our area, state, and country and were able to express our opinions on the matters.

Wednesday was fairly uneventful until I called a friend up to see how her turtle was doing (I was asked to look after and feed the turtle and fish while they were in Vegas this past weekend renewing wedding vows) and was invited over for dinner. Dan and I accepted and we spent and enjoyable evening talking and eating. We're thinking of trying to make this a weekly or bi-weekly thing. Thursday that same friend, Genaphur, and my former boss and good friend, Natalie, and I made plans to go hiking. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect since Natalie had made all the plans. I just climbed into Gen's SUV when it pulled up around 9 am and we were off. We ended up approximately 2 1/2 hours outside of Tucson at Chiricahua National Monument (http://www.nps.gov/chir/) where we started hiking down the Echo Park trail. We reached a cross-point where you could complete the Echo Park loop or head further into the park to the Heart of Rocks area. Feeling fairly confident, though noneof us was in the best of shape, we decided to take the extra trek. Oops. What could have been a nice mild 3.3 mile hike around the Echo Park loop we turned into a 7.5 mile test of muscle, joint, and asthema. I'm still hurting. I doubt that I could have made it without Heavenly Father's help, which I was asking for about halfway into it.

Ahh well. Enough about me. Again, I am grateful for the best wishes we've received. We're very happy to hear from family and know you are doing well. We're looking forward to seeing as many of you as we can this December, though you may not recognize me at first glance since I'll be about 4 1/2 months along at that point.

Love to you all,

- Karen and Dan