Current Events

So I thought for this post I'd lump a couple different recent happenings together:

Coming to an end

So we are now at the end of another semester. Derrick is finishing up with the second half of the junior core in the ISYS program and will hopefully be starting the combined senior core and first year of the master's program in the fall. (We're still waiting to hear back about his getting accepted or not). I'm excited to have more time with Derrick in the evenings and to not need to work hard to not distract him too much from his homework. This was my first semester after graduating. It's still a little unreal to not be worrying about finals at this time of the year. I did decide about 3 days ago that I'd be walking in the graduation ceremonies. I was pretty indifferent about going through the ceremony (I did get my diploma in the mail months ago) and personally would rather skip it and have a family party instead. My parents seemed to care enough, a friend in the ward looked up all the information for me, and it surprisingly wasn't too late to order a cap and gown so I've decided to go for it after all.

ASM Closing Social

On Tuesday we had the closing social for BYU's club for Derrick's major. Apparently ASM stands for Association for Systems Management. It's a pretty nerdy club but going to club events more than makes up for the membership fee. Usually big companies sponsor cool events like high adventure courses or snow tubing. The closing social was a nice catered dinner by BYU catering at the new Hinckley building. We won a booklet of $25 in gift certificates to one of the nearby movie theaters so that was pretty exciting.

Here's a picture of Derrick and I at the dinner. I've had a really bad cold all week. I also want to add that Derrick's wearing his glasses because the shower drain ate one of his contacts a few weeks ago (he wears the hard kind).

Baby Updates

I am now in my 28th week and this last Sunday marked exactly three months until our baby's due date. Sometimes it feels like being pregnant has lasted forever and other times it's crazy to me that I'm already 2/3 of the way done! I'm really grateful that so far I've been spared a lot of the unpleasantness that comes with being this far along. To name a couple, I have no trouble getting comfortable and sleeping and I also don't have the back aches or swelling yet. We'll see how long that lasts.

Earlier on Tuesday I went to the OB/GYN for another of the many regular visits. Everything is coming along on schedule. I'm growing enough size-wise and weight-wise and our baby's heartbeat is getting stronger each time we hear it. The baby's a lot more active now and this week one of the kicks I received actually felt like it came from something shaped like a foot. It was pretty funny. I like looking at the different websites to see how developed he probably is by now and it's fun to see that he can now blink and his lungs are pretty well developed.

Now in response to many requests from my old Nauvoo roommate Megan, here is a belly shot. Derrick took the picture today when I am 27 1/2 weeks pregnant.

Not your average work day...

So I was working at my receptionist job yesterday and only had about 5 minutes left when I heard yelling just outside my window. I saw a high school age boy running up to one of the doors of our office that we keep locked (thank goodness). He started heading closer to the main door where I work and the next thing I know two policemen have caught up to the boy and with guns out are yelling at him to get down on the ground! I didn't notice they were cops at first because one of them was undercover (I could see his badge after looking a bit closer). The boy started yelling too but was forced down to the ground with his hands behind his head.

As they were hand cuffing the boy I saw about 5 cop cars and a news crew van pull into the parking lot. One of the cop cars even created its own entrance by going up and over the grass. By this time the rest of the office was gathered by my desk watching as the police started emptying out the boy's pockets which contained several large pill bottles, a pack of cigarettes, and a pretty decent sized knife.

Our building is pretty close to a grocery store called Allen's and we guessed that the boy used his knife to hold up and rob the pharmacy. I ended up hanging out at work for an extra 10-15 minutes until they got the boy loaded into one of the cop cars. I figured it wasn't a good idea to try to get to my car since all the commotion was happening right by it. We were very grateful that we usually keep two of the office doors locked and I know for next time to hurry and lock the main door if anything crazy happens outside again (luckily one of my co-workers thought to lock it this time). Who knows what would have happened if the kid had made it inside the office?

Here's a link to Channel 2's story about the incident.
Here's a link for any who are interested showing the boy's picture and description of his charges. By clicking on his name Derrick and I found out that this is the 4th time he's been arrested within the last year - though this is the most serious thing he's done.

Conference Weekend

I know this is a delayed post but I keep getting distracted every time I start trying to update. I apologize in advance that this post is pretty scattered feeling. Oh well. So this last weekend, conference weekend, was a lot of fun but pretty busy. Derrick's parents came into town on Friday and we had fun seeing them throughout the weekend.

On Friday night after Derrick finished a test, the four of us had Cafe Rio at Derrick's grandparents' house (they live by the stadium). After dinner, we headed over to a stake center by the temple for Derrick's mission reunion complete with slide show and other nostalgia for those who served in the New York, Utica mission. It's obvious now that I'm pregnant and at one point Derrick's old mission president's wife told me that I'm either pregnant or really fat. It was pretty funny. I wished I'd thought to play it off like I was offended and not pregnant.

Saturday morning my sister Melissa and her fiance Nate came over for breakfast and the first session of General Conference. We had homemade waffles with strawberries, muffins, and juice. It was amazing to participate via KBYU in the solemn assembly especially since I don't have any memory of the last one. I loved watching President Monson watch everyone sustain him. What a scary calling to be the prophet. I'm glad that in the solemn assembly we get to practice common consent and for those in the meeting, show the prophet that we accept him as the Lord's chosen prophet. I've grown up listening to President Monson in different conferences and meetings and I could definitely see a difference now that he is our prophet. I miss President Hinckley but I have a testimony that President Monson is the man who God has chosen to lead His church at this time.

Immediately after the morning session of conference we said goodbye to Nate and Melissa and headed up with Mom and Dad Bowen to the conference center to watch the afternoon session. A weird thing was that we never saw or heard any protesters. Maybe it was just the direction we walked.

We hurried back to Provo after the session was over so Derrick and Dad Bowen could meet up with family to watch the Priesthood session of Conference and so I could try and set up for Melissa's bridal shower which started at 6 pm. Melissa's roommate Emily was great and had most everything set up before I got there (which was good since I walked into Melissa's apartment as the shower was starting). We played some games, ate banana splits and gave Melissa presents. It was a pretty regular bridal shower but Melissa seemed to have fun and only get a little embarrassed :). Here are a couple of pictures I took:

After hurriedly cleaning up I rushed over to Kirsten (Walker) Burningham's apartment for the second half of her baby shower. I know her from my semester at Nauvoo and got to see a few other people who I haven't seen since that semester ended. It was a lot of fun to catch up and see how much people have changed. For those who also went to Nauvoo, Kirsten is going to have a boy in May and Natalie is due in August. It was actually funny how many pregnant people were at the shower. I guess that's how things work in Provo.



On Sunday morning we went back over to Derrick's grandparents' house to watch conference wi his parents. After the session was over we had a birthday lunch that Mom Bowen made for me since they'd be back in Colorado on my real birthday (the 9th). Thanks again Mom, it was really good! They left to drive home to Colorado after lunch and we went back to our apartment where we were joined by Jason (brother), Melissa (sister), and Nate (almost brother-in-law) for the afternoon session. We had plenty of food since there were so many leftovers from Melissa's bridal shower. I love having family so close by.

One thing that really stood out to me in the last session of Conference was President Monson's request that we pray for him. To put it in his words: "My dear brothers and sisters, I love you, and I pray for you. Please pray for me. And together we will reap the blessings our Heavenly Father has in store for each one of us. This is my prayer, my plea as I add my testimony. This work is true. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." I love President Monson. He is truly the prophet called of God on the earth right now. He's got such a big responsibility and we all need each others' prayers.

(I'll admit that I "back-blogged" (post-dated) this entry:) )

For Mom Jones

So after living in their house for over 50 years, my mom's parents moved to a condo in Provo on March 29th. It's pretty weird to think that they no longer live in Sandy, but we're excited to have them close by. Moving a house-full of stuff into a condo takes some work but Grandma's made a pretty good dent in it. Here's a picture of the family room and a picture of the condo from outside.

Finished Goal

So for the month of March, Derrick and I made the goal to read the whole March Ensign together. We figured that since it focused completely on the Savior it'd be a great way to get in the right mindset for Easter. We finished the last article for FHE on March 31st so we reached our goal. One of my favorite times with working to meet this goal was when we were driving to Grand Junction Easter weekend. I read some of the articles aloud to Derrick and we got to have a really good discussion about the Savior. This was a fun experience so I thought I'd document it. Have a great day!

What I've been working on

Here is the link to the website search engine I've been creating for PBSI. fun stuff.

PBSI Presentation Search Engine

You can search by presentation, author, topic, or conference. It even ranks the authors in each presentation by the order that they helped participate.

good times.

-Derrick