A Whirlwind Month

This last month or so has been crazy! We're trying to get everything done before baby gets here at the end of the month, so we've packed everything in to such a short amount of time.

Summary
Here's what we've been up to the past month:

• We hosted an interfaith dialogue with a group of evangelicals from Westmont College in California
  
• We are still re-tiling our laundry room, kitchen, dining room, and entry way (this has been quite the process).
  
• We went to two Expos for Nathan's book design business; one was a three-day expo, and at the other, he taught two classes (one on Word and one on Excel).
  
• We had two different house guests stay for over a week (one was a member of the Church from the Netherlands I knew from my mission).
  
• Nathan taught again for two evenings at BYU for the annual Life, the Universe, and Everything Symposium.
  
• I got a new calling as Mia Maid advisor and Nathan got a new calling as 11 year-old scout master.
  
• We bought a new kitchen table and chairs that are a little bigger and more sturdy.
  
• We bought a minivan from my cousin
  
• We sold Nathan's Altima (he was sad to part with it ... it had really comfy seats).

Christmas
I realize that I haven't posted Christmas pictures yet. Nathan has already moved all of our camera pictures onto a CD, so I need to hunt down the CD to post any Christmas pictures.

Here is one picture I did get, though. This was in the box I opened from Nathan:

Yeah. That was my reaction, too. "Umm ... why thank you, Sweetie. How thoughtful. I've always wanted a bow holding a sword and a gun." But, it was actually a puzzle I was supposed to figure out. It took a little while for him to walk me through it, but I eventually got it. It is a "violent bow," right? That sounds awfully close to "violin bow," which is what he had repaired for me. It just wasn't out of the repair shop at the time. :) What a clever hubby!


Tiling
This next pic shows how much fun Nathan and our friend Ryan had demolishing the tile in the entry way. It was old, nasty, dirty tile, that actually matches the design one of our little cabinets in the living room. I bet this was fancy stuff back in the day.


This has been such a long process. We've had our floor torn up for 3 weeks, and haven't been able to use our washer and dryer. Thank goodness my parents were kind enough to let us use theirs. We had everything stuffed into the corner of the still-carpeted living room (including the table, chairs, 3 accent tables, washer, dryer, fridge, and the grand piano). Because the wood floor in the kitchen gives so much, three of our tiles have cracked in the kitchen (even through the backerboard!). The baseboards wouldn't come off without shattering in to pieces (which means we need to buy more, cut them, and paint them), and we were 30 tiles short (which means I had to go out and find tiles that matched as close as I could to the other tiles).

As glad as I am to have a tiled floor, I will miss the carpeted kitchen for a few reasons.

• I never had to wear shoes in the kitchen because the carpet felt so nice on my feet; no cold tile to worry about.
  
• It was hard to tell when the floor was dirty. If I dropped crumbs on the ground, oh well! They were forever lost in the abyss of the brown carpet until I vacuumed again.
  
• Vacuuming is much easier and faster (especially when you're pregnant) than sweeping and mopping.

What the Richardsons Do When We're Bored
Avery loves this game. We did this for about an hour the other night. She was being so silly -- and it never gets old!


Here's a video so you can actually see what the silly bean looks like now. At the beginning of the video, you can see her favorite habit: while she sucks her thumb, she rubs her fingers on the rough side of her blanket. It's so quirky; I love it. Her hair is getting pretty long and mop-like (this video was taken about two months ago, when it was much shorter), which means I probably should cut it, but that's a big step. And it's one that I'm ill-prepared for. I don't want to give her a mullet. Plus, her hair is really curly, especially in the back, and I don't want to cut the curls off.



Our "New" Van
I told Nathan I wanted a van because I had trouble getting Avery in and out of our little car without killing my pregnant back--and hitting Avery's head on the ceiling in the process. It turns out my cousin was selling hers, and we got a great deal on it! It's a silver 2004 Mazda MPV.

The back seats fold into the floor, it has a sunroof, and automatic sliding doors on both sides! I LOVE IT! Now my back doesn't hurt anymore. And when my hands are full, but I need to help Avery in to the car, all I have to do is push a button on my keychain, and viola--the door opens (and closes) by itself! This is a nice feature, especially because our little Hyundai has manual locks.


Notice below how the passenger bucket seat slides over to the center to make it easier to get into the back seats?? Genius!!


Westmont College Dialogue
This was a really fun one because it was the smallest group of students we've hosted...which meant that our discussion groups were no larger than 4 people! I was in a group with Nathan, Ty (an evangelical from Westmont), and Cat (a visitor from Maine who was United Methodist). We discussed the Fall of Adam and Eve to start off. They both believed it shouldn't have happened, and that pain, although inevitable, is not necessary to experience joy. They were surprised to learn that we not only believe the Fall of Adam was necessary, but a good thing -- and that it is impossible to experience joy without pain. I got to ask them about their belief in the time between death and the resurrection, and they got to ask us about temple work for our deceased ancestors, and how we believe spiritual gifts operate today.
We also got to each discuss what we believed constitutes a "valid" baptism.


I was sad to see this group go because we only had about an hour to an hour and a half to be in our groups because the group was running behind schedule. Usually we have about 3 hours to discuss in small groups. But, the topics were different than the usual, and that made it extra fun.