Sorry and Nothing Much but Randoms and Seahawks

Sorry the pictures aren't working. We shall see when I get around to fixing it. I just have other things that need to get done, you know?

It has been super foggy lately but yesterday and (it seems like) today the sun burned the fog off and was a lovely day. We went to the park and got some lovely Vitamin D yesterday, and we will do that this afternoon too.

I feel like we are obligated to watch the Super Bowl and to support the Seahawks. Usually, I don't watch or care about the Super Bowl, and if we didn't live in the Seattle area, I would root for the Broncos, so it is kind of weird to feel obligated in this way.

Speaking of that, we learned that Rachel is afraid of fireworks when people around us set off fireworks after the win on Sunday. I can only imagine the noise people will make if the Seahawks win, when the Seahawks win. It will be bigger the the Fourth of July, and that was big.

We are trying to deep clean our house to rid it of demons in preparation of Chinese New Year. It is always something I begin with gusto and then have to drag myself to do finish it.

We have friends living in Belgium and friends who will be living in the UK at the same time and we thought we should go visit them. Unfortunately, Andrew does not have enough vacation time. Well, he does right now but we have to save it for the summer when we go to Lake Cascade with my family and then when we go to Utah for a wedding. Sorry friends living in Europe.

And that is all for now!

It's January!

Well I have been slacking but that doesn't matter. The main reason is that I am too lazy (and confused about whatever program Andrew wants me to use) to put pictures on the computer, and then to flickr, and then to the blog. So I thought I'd post Christmas stuff, but that isn't on here.

So here is a Thanksgiving picture.



And here is a very random picture from a walk I went on with Andrew, Rachel, and Wesley (Maren was running).

Yes, that is a chicken with some ducks.

We are doing fine around here. Not too much to report.

My Problem Is...

My problem is that I don't know how I want to decorate my house. First world problem, I know.

The only thing I know is that I want to do purple downstairs. It is basically one room, so I have been thinking about it as a whole.

But upstairs? No clue.

Do I want white blinds (totally safe) or faux-wood blinds (could be cool, could be tacky)?

Do I want a brown or a gray neutral nursery?

Do I want to paint our bathroom? What color?

Is doing the kid bathroom under-the-sea style too cliche?

Will I ever finish unpacking the master bedroom stuff?

How will I decorate the master bedroom?

Should I paint the upstairs family room which is furnished with a hodge-podge of furniture?

Do I paint the room I'm planning on putting Rachel in when future-and-not-yet-existing-baby-sibling comes or do I wait until we get closer?

And speaking of that room, do we do a secret garden mural and which wall do we put it on or do something simpler?

Oh my problems.

What is a room in your home you are struggling with?

Thoughts on any of my above problems?

We Are Not Dead

We are very much alive. We are moved in and have been living here for almost a month--crazy! I have a lot of pictures of Rachel and our adventures since then, but we only have the laptop at our house and I don't want to go through the hassle of uploading pictures here and on our desktop later. So. We are living in two places, which is cool and inconvenient but less expensive than breaking our contract early.

Are you ready for some happy news? I am wearing my pre-pregnancy jeans and they are tight but they are better than my other jeans which fell off constantly. This is good news. I have also been doing much better with running. Once I run consistently, I begin to enjoy it. I am enjoying it more and more each run. Pushing Rachel in our new jogging stroller is tough. One of the great things about our house is that I just have to put the stroller in the garage when I am done running. I don't have to drag it up to the third floor. YAY! I am also doing hot yoga for the month and I haven't decided if I like it because it is yoga or because it is hot yoga. I'm thinking that I like it because I like yoga. It is so freaking hot. But that is cool because I am already quite flexible and I become even more flexible. So the point is, I can wear my old pants.

Are you ready for some sad news? My leopard gecko Grendel died this week. I was waiting for him to die for a few months because he stopped eating. I was sad about that. But when me, Andrew, and Elise had his funeral, we all said nice things, and I remembered that he was a cool pet and I think he is probably happy in lizard heaven. I made a little bed in a macaroni and cheese box and slid it into a fruit snack box. I think it was one of the nicest coffins I have ever made.

I have so many books. It is ridiculous. We only have three bookshelves. And that is ridiculous for the amount of books we have. I think it wouldn't be so bad if we could fit them all on bookshelves. Right now, all the books for my master's thesis are on the floor of our room. Andrew said in a few years we might build some shelves under the window in our room. Until then, I have to figure our where to put all the books. I also went through and pulled out the books that I will probably never look at again. I collaborated with Amazon and divided them between books that would be worth my time to sell and books that are going to Goodwill. I will be getting rid of 25ish books. And that hardly even made a dent.

Rachel grabs her toes. It is super cute. I cannot put into words her cuteness. She is also a pill sometimes. She was yesterday. And today she is kind of a stinker, but not too bad. She is getting better at not freaking out in the jogging stroller.

Anyway, I hope to post again soon!

The Only Pictures on My Phone

Pretty much the only pictures on my phone are of Rachel. How can I help it when she is so darn cute?


Wearing her cute gingerbread outfit from Grandpa.


On a walk with mom and she is actually awake! It didn't last too much longer. Usually she zonks right out when I put her in the Ergo Baby (which we love). Also, I look like a dork and have my eyes closed.


"I'm awake!" Even in the car. Such pretty, big, blue eyes.


First trip to Cabela's and trying out fishing poles with dad. She is wearing her little elf outfit from Oma.


I accidentally captured one of her first conscious smiles!


A beautiful girl who is finally happy again. Hooray for modern medicine! (more on this later)


The tail end of a smile. She is so cute. Her mohawk and mullet are both getting longer.

And, because all the other pictures on my phone are of him that Melanie sent to me, here is my adorable nephew, Nigel.

He also has big, blue eyes. I'm so excited for them to "meet" (Nigel whacking Rachel in the face) at Christmas time.

So many baby pictures. Being a mom is interesting, to say the least.

Have you realized that parents are like 20 times the size of their babies?

Make Way for Ducklings: Flaunting My Fella

A blogger I read challenged her readers to "flaunt" our spouses in response to an online forum that made fun of husbands. I love my Andrew and I want to flaunt him and the delightful person he is.

We were returning from the grocery store and passing the duck pond. Andrew made a few duck calls. And some ducks started to follow us.



Andrew continued to call the ducks and more came out of the water and started to follow us. It was almost terrifying. There were about 30 ducks following us.



A few more duck calls and the ducks still in the water swam alongside him.



These ducks would have followed Andrew (their king, apparently) home and into a cooking pot. Good thing he doesn't really like duck. And good thing that they got confused when we passed an old man smoking and his grandson so the ducks stopped following us.

My fella is great because he carries the baby, the groceries, isn't afraid to be himself by calling ducks in as if he were hunting when we live in a place where people love their pets and animals more than other people, and making us all laugh.

Backpacking Fail #2: Somewhere Near Mt. Baker

We decided to give backpacking another try. I found an area, called up the ranger station, they gave me a recommendation near Baker Lake. There wasn't snow, it was relatively flat, and about 4.5 miles in to the camp spots. The weather was supposed to be clear for the weekend. We had just bought a new, 3-man tent. The trip was going to actually work and it was exactly what I wanted. We packed our packs, loaded our car, and drove towards Mt. Baker. (FYI, Mt. Baker is a volcano, just like Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Adams--all of which are here in Washington. Mt. Baker is in the northern part of the state, though.)

We got to the road and it was closed! Thank you for telling me, ranger station. I was not happy with the rangers. The road being closed because of construction is definitely something they should have known about! So we decided to drive up a Forest Service road, find a new trail, and camp there. This place should be crawling with trails.


Mt. Baker's tippy top


We reached the snow. No backpacking up here!


We found a trail (finally) and followed it for a ways without our packs, just to check it out. We reached a raging river of death and no campsites. No backpacking here!

We were getting tired of this, as we had been driving for about five hours and had not found a place to pack into. So we found a pull-out and pitched our tent. Backpacking fail.


But our  new tent is very nice. There is room for us to play Skip-Bo in! And there will be room for a few babies, too.


And then we lit a fire and ate our dehydrated food and I peed in the middle of the night and did not get eaten by animals and our tent didn't leak. I'd say it was a successful camping trip--just not a backpacking trip.

In the morning, both Andrew and me were happy. Yay! We slept well!


And then we went to look for some hot springs we heard someone mention. We found them!

They were more like warm springs, but it was still nice to soak our legs in sulfury water. (Do you like Andrew's legs? I told him he looked like he was naked in the picture, but he really did have on his clothes.)


See, Andrew has pants on. :) If this blog were inappropriate, I would say, "Darn." But this is an appropriate blog, and I don't ever say inappropriate things like that.


Me in the warm springs. I wished we knew about these before and brought our swim suits!

And then we went to check out Baker Lake.

It was pretty. It is actually a reservoir. I think we are going to plan a fishing trip to here sometime.

On our way back home, we went on an interpretive trail with signs. Andrew had to pick some berries.

He wasn't supposed to get off the trail. Oh well.


Me: "What kind of berries are they?"
Andrew: "I don't know. You have a fifty percent chance with red berries."
Conclusion: These were not poisonous but not tasty.


Me by a huge old tree. Don't let it fool you, it is actually bigger than 62 inches (my wingspan and height). This is just the perspective fooling you. Don't you remember that from art class? It was probably at least seven feet wide.


The sign identified this berry for us! Red huckleberries! Yummy and tart! Don't you just love Andrew's silly face?

In conclusion, this was a much more delightful experience than our first backpacking trip. However, it was more of an impromptu camping trip. I cannot wait to see what our next backpacking fail trip will bring.

Sarah's Graduation

I forgot to mention that within all the chilling and packing and panicking I did during the end of April, I also passed my thesis defense with flying colors! David (my adviser and boss) said it was an unusual defense because the other committee members were so positive. My defense was amazing. I got so many new ideas and was so excited to keep working and expanding my project.

Anyway, that meant I could walk at graduation!

And it began traumatically for me. My friend, Chase, had a little medal from the Humanities College, which he said they just gave to him when he picked up his cap and gown. Well I didn't get one! And I am pregnant! And I became irrationally upset about this. So I went over the the Josten's table and kindly asked if they knew where I was supposed to pick up my little medal. The guy was super RUDE and told me he didn't have time to help me. Chase was also shocked at the Josten's guy's rudeness. So then I was even more upset. Fortunately, a few minutes later, Dr. Conte showed up and gave me a medal. I was really irrationally happy that I got my medal. Moral of the story: Give pregnant women medals. They deserve it.

And then we had to wait for a long time before the procession began because of the lazy bums who didn't pick up their caps and gowns before! So the academic procession began about 45 minutes late. And I had to pee and I was really really thirsty. This was a bad day to be pregnant.

Academic Procession

At this part, all the future Masters walked from the Fieldhouse to the Spectrum while they blasted bagpipe music from the speakers around the university. First best part of the procession was the kids at the elementary school applauding us and holding signs. They were just happy to be out of class. Second best part was seeing Andrew, my parents, and Heidi (my MIL) applauding me.

Me--looking slightly like the pope giving a blessing or a Medieval Jesus with the Holy Hand Grenade--marching.

A much more attractive photo of me marching.

The future Masters entering the Spectrum. Hi family!

The Hooding

In this part of the graduation ceremony, the future Masters walk through a tunnel of professors and you line up. The professors put the hood over your head and then you walk to the stage and give them the card with your name on it. These photos were taken by David with his phone from a distance, but since he was sitting where he could actually see the hooding, these pictures are actually pretty good.

The hood going over my head. :)

Oh my gosh! Moses (the professor in the yellow) just told me how to fix my hair over the hood!!! Moses put the hood on me! (Why is this post full of religious references?)

Heading up to the stage...

"Master of Arts in History, Sarah L. B. Fassmann."

Receiving my diploma cover--thanks!

I'm so happy and my shoes are so great. 

Hi family! I got my diploma! And my cap is falling off my head.

 The Happy Graduate

Master Sarah--that's right. I'm so proud.

I'm so proud of this accomplishment! I have worked really hard over the past two years and especially hard during March and April to finish my thesis in time. I still need to finish revisions, but I am done!

And because it is awesome and I've already alluded to several religious things, don't you think I look great in my black robes of a false priesthood/academic robes?

Oh Hugh Nibley, you are so good for making everyone feel smart and stupid at the same time.

Time Flies When Life Gets Crazy

We have officially relocated to Washington! And a lot has gone on since then, so I will do a few updates. In general, I hung out with my nephew, ended my job, graduated, Andrew graduated, we moved, celebrated a wedding, unpacked, and I am looking for a new OB/GYN. Life is good, so be excited for these thrilling updates!

Also, today on my morning run, I saw six bunnies and seven ducklings. I live in Easter land!

Another also, we live on the top floor. Thank goodness I took the stairs to work every day so I am strong. I am quite thrilled that I no longer hear our upstairs neighbors talking, jumping, singing, peeing, or other awkward activities.

We have to give talks on Sunday in our new ward. We are talking on Elder Dallin H. Oaks's talk, "Sacrifice." I feel like we just barely gave talks (which we did, in March). His was a great talk, and hopefully mine will be all right. At least I don't have it like Andrew does, he has to teach Elders Quorum on Sunday. :)

Auf Wedersehen!