It's About Time!

So some exciting things have been happening at the Cunningham house. As some of you may know (and others who may not) Clint and I have not been able to have children the "good ol' fashioned way." We have explored a few things and seriously considered adoption but we left the adoption agency feeling very discouraged for the following reasons:

1. It was going to cost AT LEAST $22,000
2. You have to wait to be picked...some wait more than a year!
3. There is a 20% chance the mother will change her mind once the baby is born
4. You have to prepare a scrapbook of sorts so mothers can view your profile and I do not have the talent (like my friend Carson) to produce gorgeous scrapbook pages that would get Clint and I noticed!

We were still seriously debating the adoption idea when last Christmas, a coworker of mine told me that, through artificial insemination, his son and daughter-in-law were having triplets. So I started researching the process and Clint and I met with a doctor in March to see if we could get pregnant through artificial insemination as well.

It took two months of tests, blood draws, ultrasounds etc. but they determined that with the right medications and artificial triggers we had a really good chance!

So we tried in May and it failed. We tried in July and it failed again. But as they say, "three times is the charm" because our third attempt in September took and we found out in early October that I was pregnant. When I took the test and it came back positive I almost didn't believe it. I took it downstairs to Clint's office and just set it on his desk and he looked at it, sprang out of his chair, hugged me so hard, and we both just started crying!

I am currently 13 1/2 weeks pregnant and while I find it sort of weird to be displaying pictures of my uterus for anyone to see, I thought it was pretty cool to see our baby developing from a little blob to an actual human form in such a short amount of time:


This first picture was our second ultrasound taken on 11.4.2009. This was the first time we got to see the flicker of a heart beat.



This is a picture of the 3rd ultrasound taken on 11.16.09. I was feeling really anxious and every little pang in my abdomen was freaking me out so my doctor told me to come in to see the baby again just to put my mind at ease. Poor guy. He is very patient with me.

Again, I was worried last week and my appointment with my doctor wasn't for another week and a half so Clint took me to Fetal Foto and they did an ultrasound and took several awesome pictures for me. This one below is the profile shot they took. It's amazing that it is already looking so much more like a person here!

At Fetal Foto they also recorded an amazing DVD of our baby moving around, sucking its thumb, putting its hand up to its face, etc. And we got to hear its heartbeat for the first time too!

So there you have it folks! We are so excited and are crossing our fingers that by mid-June we will have a healthy baby to take home! Wonder how the dogs will do with this...

Tess is a weird dog!

Since Clint works from home, the dogs will spend most of the day down in his office with him. Just about every day I will get a text message from Clint with a new interesting picture of Tess sleeping or doing something really weird. Thought I would share a few here...I laugh out loud every time I look at these!

For some reason Tess really likes to have her face and nose covered while sleeping:


This pictures is just plain weird!


I promise Clint did NOT put her in the sleeve of his hoodie...this time. He came downstairs and she had gotten stuck on her own!


This is cyclops Tess...


Tess has now learned how to hop up on the bar stool in the kitchen. That dog has springs in her back legs, I swear!

Turkey Time!

I have decided that this is going to be the year that I attempt to cook a turkey for the first time! I have been watching any episode I can find on Food Network that discusses the art of cooking this little beast and have a few pretty good ideas! Hopefully my turkey will look like this...



Stay tuned for results of what my friend Heather calls "domestic braggery" or, possibly in my case, a failed attempt at domestic braggery!

San Diego

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures of our trip to San Diego. I went a little crazy with the camera at San Diego Zoo and SeaWorld so I thought it might be a little easier to put all the pictures on a slideshow and then just talk about a few of my favorites:

Here is a picture of our rental car...Clint's dream car. He was in heaven for the whole trip!

Clint and I saw a lot of animals that looked a lot like our little furballs at home. This pot belly big looks a lot like our fat little Molly...

...and this sea lion looks so much like Tess!

I'm a sucker for sunsets. This is a view just outside our hotel.

On the tram at San Diego Zoo. This park is HUGE! It was nice to be able to take a little rest and get from one side of the park to the other.

I'm not sure I'll ever be able to enjoy Hogle Zoo again. The animals at the San Diego Zoo are so much more active and their habitats are so great! Hard to believe only a piece of glass separated me from this hippo!

Just waiting at the dock before we go out on the boat behind us for dinner and a cruise around the harbor. Just an FYI...I was FREEZING on the boat! It was so cold that my server found me a table cloth to wrap up in!

Our "taxi" driver to the dinner cruise was quite interesting. The music you hear on this video is actually coming from his bike. He had gold teeth and he smiled and rang his little bell at all the passersby. Then he gave us his business card. It said his name was "Lance Legstrong!"

The Shamu show at Sea World was so cool!

Here is Clint waiting for the dolphin show to begin. We waited for quite a while but he was happy because he got his frozen lemonade.

Petting the bay rays was BY FAR my favorite part of the trip. They swam right up to us and put their squishy little heads right under our hands. I loved it!

The sea lions were pretty fun to watch too! These things even whine for food like Tess does!

What the...?

Isn't it interesting that dogs can have very distinct personalities? It has been fun to learn the habits and mannerisms of my two dogs. And even though I know they are odd little balls of black and white fur, I am still continually surprised at the weird things they do!

Clint sent me this picture yesterday of Tess relaxing in the red chair in his office.

(To get the full effect of this picture, you should open it full screen.)

I am VERY curious to know what she was dreaming about when Clint took this picture. She is such a weird little creature!

Jane Eyre

This year I decided I was going to read a lot more since I have become a little bit of a reality-TV-loving couch potato. But you will probably notice that a lot of the books I have read this year have been murder mysteries or fantasy-based novels. I thought it might be good to try reading something a little more "classic" so I bought Jane Eyre a month ago.

I have to say....I'm a little disappointed! Once I got used to the Old English flowery language, I found that Charlotte Bronte writes about love incredibly well! But the story just didn't quite end the way I would've liked.

I think I'll stick with my Twilight-type books from now on! I'd rather read about handsome, romantic vampires instead!

Julie and Julia

My wife loves Meryl Streep (what woman doesnt?) She has some sort of appeal for women, similar to Glenn Close and Sarah Jessica Parker. All 3 women do not embody what I would consider to be good looks (or even female looks) but are thought of by other women to be attractive. I don't understand it, but it helps explain why I ended up at a showing of Julie & Julia last Saturday with our good friends Jon and Bri.

In all fairness, the movie was okay. It was hardly action packed or suspenseful but it still had its moments. I did have a few issues with the film that distracted me. I will list them below, so that you can be aware of them before watching it.

Meryl Streep is meant to portray a 37 to roughly 45 year old woman, with a husband who is 10 years her senior. This bothered me the entire movie because Meryl Streep looked 60 years old, while her husband looked 10 years younger than her. I realize there needs to be some artistic flexibility given to movies but this is pretty distracting. I felt extremely uncomfortable during every sexually suggestive scene. This could have also been caused by the fact that the husband was more feminine than Streep.

Another annoying distraction was the 2002 Julie's haircut. What the...??? I realize the real life Julie has that haircut, but did they really need to insert it into the movie for "realism"? I doubt everything else was perfectly portrayed in the movie, so why stick to making your leading actress look like a mop? I never understood the practice of making attractive people "ugly" by giving them glasses or a bad haircut.

One other noticable flaw, was the fact that the characters (in their late 20s and early 30s) ate french food nonstop over the course of a year and did not put on a single pound. I don't know about most people in my age demographic, but by the end of month 3 I would be bulging out of my clothes and as lethargic as a sloth.

Finally, the ending sucked. This was meant to be a feel-good movie but the entire high created by the movie was destroyed by the last 10 minutes. Again, accuracy doesn't always have to be prominant in an big screen adaption. Why would they bother saying that Julia Childs thought her blog was disrespectful and rude? It completely undermines Julie's view of Julia and destroys the protrayal of Julia Child's character!!

It was still an enjoyable enough watch, something that most people could feel good about paying $1 to see. To be honest, watching Meryl Streep on a smaller TV screen would be preferable than on a big movie screen. This ranks in my top 10 worst movies to possibly see in IMAX.

HobbleCreek Half Marathon

So you all probably thought Clint would be STRESS FREE after he received news that he had officially graduated from the U of U. Unfortunately, he did have one more BIG event on the horizon. Several months ago he allowed my dad to convince him that running a half marathon would be a great idea! So he signed up for the HobbleCreek Half Marathon on August 22nd. Now for those of you who cannot wrap your head around the distance of a half marathon, let me help you out...

13.1 Miles

or
21,097.5 Meters

or
69,168 Feet

or
23,056 Yards

or
230.56 Football Fields

Whew!

That's a lot of RUNNING!

So the night before the race we stayed at my grandparents house in Provo. I was so nervous for Clint that I tossed and turned all night! Clint will add his comments in green so you know his thoughts compared to mine!

Here are the runners ready to go! It's 5:30 am! (This photo was actually closer to 4:50)

I don't know why I got a kick out this sign but I did! I guess because I was proud that Clint was considered one of these "runners on the road!"

And here comes my Dad! He finished at about 2 hours even!

David is over 50 years old and he beat me. I feel no shame in this, however, because he is a fairly big runner and was training for the St. George Marathon. I actually kept pace with him until about 9 1/2 miles, when I hit my runner's wall. It probably didn't help that I ran only 2 times in July and 4 times in August. My final school semester occupied WAY too much of my time.

And here comes Clint not far behind David! (He's smiling here because I was screaming and yelling and shouting for him as he ran by!)

I was actually smiling because I had been trying to conserve my energy by dragging ass the previous 1/2 mile so that I could jog at a decent pace past Em. She never suspected a thing!

Then I did a mad dash across the park and got to the finish line just in time to take a few more pictures of my man! He looks good, doesn't he?

I am glad to know she did some running. That standing around with a camera must have been exhausting!

Here he is just passing the finish line. His actual time was closer to 2:07:00 because he did not cross the starting line right as the time clock started.

Quick story. There were roughly 1100 people waiting at the starting line for the race to begin. When the gun finally sounded 40 minutes late, everyone cheered and pushed forward about 10 feet when everything came to a complete halt. Turns out the serious runners in the very front were trying to space themselves out a bit, causing everything to hit a wall of flesh 10 seconds in. This is also why I was 30-45 seconds late crossing the starting line.

And here comes my Mom! She is hilarious when she runs to the finish line. She was blowing kisses to the crowd and teasing some guy running next to her. When I made the mad dash back to the to the finish line she was coming around the corner with her arms out like she was an airplane coming in for a landing! She's so weird!

As hard as it was for me to run this race, I have no idea how Lisa did it. Lisa's bladder is famously the size of a small pea. She made a bathroom break (or shrub break) 4 times before the race but none during! Very impressive.

My Dad is so sweet! He jumped in to run the last little leg of the race with my mom!

It would have been sweet if my spouse had run the last leg with me..........

And here they all are after the race is over!

I am so proud of Clint for running this race! He wants to run it again next year and I think I just might join him. We are thinking about getting a whole bunch of people to run it with us! Let us know if you want to join in!

Here are some final notes

Having actual running clothes made a huge difference. When I was wearing normal sports clothing to run, I was losing 4 or 5 pounds in sweat every long run I did. After getting actual running clothes, my body temp. stayed much cooler and I was able to stay hydrated.

I had a great time running, even though I couldn't walk right for a week after. I need to train better next year but look forward to doing it. Hopefully I can get some friends to join me.

Sun Valley Trip

Here are a few pictures from a little overnight trip Clint and I did in May with the rest of my client services department at FirstWest. We had a "farewell dinner/trip" for my boss Ken. (He resigned to explore new opportunities. :(

Here is Clint's and my room for the night!

Hanging out before dinner!

Aw Clint!

At dinner with the rest of the CSR's: Holly and her husband Dave...

Kym and her son...

My boss, Ken, receiving the goodbye presents we put together for him...

Taking a ride on the ski lifts the next morning...

Graduation

Repent all ye sinners, armageddon is upon us......

T Clinton Cunningham graduated

(pending arrival of actual diploma)

I had an entire post written that summed up my school experience quite nicely but I decided to postpone it until my official diploma arrived. I have invested way too much of my life to blow it before getting that stupid piece of paper. Thanks to my family and friends for support etc. Thanks to my wife for putting up with me during numerous test weeks.

A special thanks to the lazy, good-for-nothing idiot professors that wasted most of my time learning stuff that is completely irrelevant to everyday working life. I loved learning how to do statistics over the course of a semester that could be done in 30 minutes in Excel....it was so fulfilling! I loved getting a taste of the "real world" by being forced into student groups for projects that made up a large portion of my grade. I especially loved learning from professors who failed in the business world but who get paid to do "research" and teach young minds. Thanks. ---I realize there are probably several grammatical errors in that paragraph that reflect poorly on my education....but if you read the paragraph, you can understand why.

I Love Shoes!

I found this sign at Target and had to have it! It now sits on my desk at work!

Another One to Cross Off the 'Honey Do' List

So you may remember that on New Years Day, Clint and I (along with my mom and dad) started the daunting process of remodeling our tiny little master bath. Well it is finally finished! Hooray! Only 7 months later! I thought everyone would like to see the before-and-after shots:

BEFORE...

AFTER!

BEFORE...

AFTER!

Sorry...I don't have a before shot for this...but this is a nice view of the floor tile, trim, and cool toilet paper stand and double towel bar!

Also, since I named part of this bathroom project the "Niche from Hell" I figured it would be nice to show the evolution of the once old, ugly medicine cabinet to a pretty nice lookin' decorative niche! Most of the credit for this part of the bathroom goes to my dad who took the mudding of the niche to a whole new level! This sounds lame but working with mud/compound like this is really an art!

It looks like such a harmless little project here...how naive I was...

Then came the task of creating the arch...

Next, we had to secure the arch and build the front facade...a lot harder than I thought it would be...

Then we had to mud the niche. I did a little bit of this but I got too impatient. It's a lot of mudding and sanding, mudding and sanding! I finally needed my dad to come over to finish it!

And here is the final result!

We must thank everyone who helped us complete this project:

My dad David, my mom Lisa, Clint's dad Paul, Cam, Loren, Hector (who tiled our tub), and all the nice people at Lowe's! We couldn't have done it without you!

Now...on to the next bathroom?...