"Labor"ing Without Power

This last weekend, the Nufers came to visit for the 3-day holiday. They arrived Saturday afternoon in high hopes of watching the BYU vs Ole Miss football game. As luck would have it, some pansy little storm knocked our power out for about two hours, causing us to miss the first quarter. Luckily, neither team actually scored in that quarter. During the game, we were able to make dinner and then celebrate as we won 14-13! Go Cougars!

Later that evening, after the kids were in bed, the Nufers turned on "Prince of Persia" (which they had never seen) only to be rewarded with losing the power at the very climax of the movie (I was actually in the shower and it is VERY hard to finish showering when it is so dark!) By candlelight, we all prepared for and got to bed. The power came back on after most were asleep. The entertaining story of the night is that Josh's noisemaker came back on to a different setting (birds instead of rain) and it seriously freaked the poor kid out! He was huddled next to his door trying to groggily get away from the scary birds. My poor boy.

Sunday was a very exciting day for me! I got to interpret in sign language for Holly: a deaf sister in our ward. I knew mom had interpreted before, so when I saw Holly come in, I asked mom if she wanted to do it. I think she was a bit nervous, but she said she would do her best and I introduced Holly to my mom. Mom ended up interpreting for RS and Sunday School (I had to teach SS, so I missed her there) and started out in Sacrament Meeting. As I watched my mom, I was able to get the courage to switch her and I interpreted for several testimonies and the closing prayer. It was so EXCITING!! Now that Holly has seen me interpret, I asked her if she wanted me to try and interpret for all the meetings (even though I really am not that great!) and she very excitedly said that she would really like that. So it looks like I'm going to be signing at church now!

While the rest of the Nufers (and the Monson babies) took naps, Steve, dad and I took Eric to some choice locations to get his Senior pictures done. Emily and Shawn Tate were nice enough to let me borrow their really good camera and I took pictures along with dad. It was fun to experiment. I only included my favorite picture of him, so if you want to see more, you'll have to ask Eric.

This spot is a very popular location for brides and grooms to get great pictures with the Chicago skyline in the background. In the 20-30 minutes we were there, I counted 7 brides, though I'm sure there were more. I started taking pictures of them all, just to keep track. There are three in this picture: can you find them all?

On Monday, Steve was really sick: enough so that I took him to Urgent Care while the Nufers kept track of Josh and Kelsey. Once again, we were without power for a couple of hours. It was SO nice for them to keep our babies. (By the way, Steve is fine now. The wait at Urgent Care was long enough that we went home to wait and we never went back because he was feeling so much better.) Here they are downtown at the same spot we took Eric. I forgot to get a jacket for Josh, but apparently it got cold very fast. I'm guessing that Chicago won't be in the family picture this year.

After experiencing downtown in the cold, they decided to do something indoors. I pointed out that the Garfield Park Conservatory was nice and they went over there. Sadly, many of my favorite rooms are closed off right now because some hail destroyed a bunch of glass panes from the roof.

With the nice camera, I couldn't help but take a bunch of pictures of my kiddos.

I LOVE Kelsey's face in this picture. She is just so curious about everything!

We loved having everyone here and Josh has been saying all of their names in his prayers. It's really sweet. I loved the talk-time with my mommy and loved cheering on those Cougars with the Nufer enthusiasm! We love you!