Achoo!

This has felt like a very long week. Last night we went out for dinner and a movie. The movie theater we wanted to go to is in a shopping mall with a few restaurants that we've been meaning to try so we did a Progressive Dinner where we had different things at different restaurants. We had an appetizer of soft pretzels with green chili cheese dipping sauce at Thunder Canyon Brewery. It's a fun little place with lots of rocks in the decor. We liked it. Next, we moved to Cafe Tremolo for our entrees. I had a shrimp and avocado cocktail with a side salad and Joe, of course, ordered the prime rib. It was pretty good but there was a really horrible shade of yellow paint on the walls. Finally, we went to The Melting Pot for dessert fondue. We had the Flaming Turtle which is milk chocolate with carmel and pecans. It was delicious. Finally, we ended the night by seeing the new movie Date Night. It's hilarious and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a good date movie. It's funny, sweet, and has an interesting plot. 

We had a wonderfully cool and wet spring here in Tucson, which means the wildflowers are spectacular right now. This picture is from our front yard. You can't see the ground most days because of all the different blooming flowers. However, so many flowers means wicked allergies. I can't be outside for more than ten minutes without having my eyes start watering and my nose running continuously. Even if I stay inside I'm pretty congested. We even put the A/C on as a means of trying to filter out the pollen from the house, but I'm not sure how well it's working. I've been taking some Benadryl at night, but I can't take it during the day because it makes me extremely sleepy. But the flowers are pretty, and as long as I'm inside it's manageable.  

On Monday I will be 26 weeks. At the end of next week I will officially begin the 3rd trimester. This week we noticed that when the baby kicks you can now see my belly move a little bit in that general area. It's kind of disturbing. My students at school can't stop asking questions about the pregnancy. Two teachers (and unfortunately two students) are pregnant, and the rest of the students just can't seem to get enough information about what it's like. One of my students asked me if I was having sextuplets because all of a sudden I am humongous. How do you respond to that? Technically I've been on the low end of healthy weight gain for the whole pregnancy, so I'm not really that big. They also can't understand why we have decided to not find out the gender. It just blows their minds that anyone would want it to be a surprise. 

Tomorrow is Joe's birthday. I bought him a Wii a couple of weeks ago and gave it to him early so we could register the warranty. (I had accidentally wrapped it before I realized there was a time limit to when it needed to be done.) We've gotten a golf game, a tennis game, a Mario game, Wii Sports Resort, and some sort of shooting/war game. I really like the Sports Resort, particularly the canoeing. This is the only game system that I have even a chance at winning things because it's completely unlike all of the other ones out there. Having grown up without a game system, I apparently didn't develop the synapses necessary to play traditional video games. But the Wii is different, and I can actually play it. We might make an ice cream cake tomorrow to celebrate, but nothing has been decided yet. That's all for now!