New Bike

There are a bunch of guys in our ward who are very into biking. They have nice road bikes and sometimes go out on rides together. One guy in the ward rides his bike everywhere. He even rode it to ward council last week. That may not seem like that big of a deal, but it takes us 20-25 minutes to drive to our church. It was really funny watching him come in in his sweats and t-shirt, go to the bathroom, and then come out in his suit.

Anyway...since we moved to Kentucky, Noel has loved riding his old Huffy mountain bike around for some exercise. Although the Huffy is pretty much the best bike ever made, he has really wanted to get a road bike so that he could go out with his friends in the ward. So today all of his wildest dreams came true. He got his road bike. It is a Cannondale Sport. It has the nice gear shifters, drop down handle-bars, carbon-fiber fork and the whole bit. We got a really good deal on it, too. It is so snazzy!Now all he needs is the spandex. :)

Boston Pictures

Noel always shoots his pictures in raw and so I have to ask him to post the "good" pictures. As such, here are some of our favorite from the trip. In other words, for those that do better with picture stories, this is the post for you:)

Trees Outside Prudential Building

Church of Science

Amber enjoying the Atlantic


MV at sunset


Fenway at Night
Hope you enjoyed the slideshow!

Vacation

Since school is out for me (school is not really out for Noel; he is working hard with his internship for the summer), Noel and I were able to take a lovely vacation. First we went to Rochester to visit Noel's family. I'll tell you what...riding in a car for 10 hour is no cup of tea. Especially when your already swollen feet rival an elephant's in size. Really, the traveling was not that bad. And all in all, the whole driving experience went smoothly.

While in Rochester, we had a blast! We went garage sale shopping with Lynne and got a bunch of stuff for the baby. The nice thing about the garage sales in Rochester is that most of the people around only have 1-2 kids and then sell everything. So the stuff we got is still in great shape. We could barely fit it all in the car when we were coming back to Lexington. Thanks Lynne for all the great finds!


We also went to see the play "Wicked." It was FABULOUS!!!! I absolutely loved it! It has a great story line, awesome music, and the performers were fantastic. Noel keeps saying that he can never watch "The Wizard of Oz" the same way again. If you ever get the chance to see it, do. You will love it.

Rochester has a minor league baseball team called the Rochester Redwings. They are affiliated with the Minnesota Twins. We went with Noel's parents, sister, grandparents, and some of Gordie's clients. It was a perfect night. It was clear and cool (I was actually a comfortable temperature).
After spending 5 wonderfully relaxing days in Rochester, it was off to Boston! I had never been to Boston so I was super excited. It took us about 7 or so hours to get there. It should have taken around 6, but there was a semi that caught fire on the interstate and we hit a rush hour a bit. When we checked into our hotel, the manager upgraded us to a suite at no extra charge. Noel kept telling me that it was great that I am pregnant because people are nicer to us. A definite perk.

Our first day in Boston, we went to some of the big historical sites. We went to the Trinity Church; it is absolutely beautiful. These pictures don't do it justice.

We went to Faneuil Hall. It was built in 1742 and served as a market place and meeting house for the town. Then we had lunch at Quincy Market and walked part of the Freedom Trail (a walk around the city that leads you to different spots that are important in U.S. history). After that I was pretty tired (I'm such a wimp), and we got to give our feet a rest when we went on a Duck Tour. When you go on a Duck Tour, you ride on this World War II amphibious vehicle that takes you all over the city. Basically, you get to see Boston in a nutshell for an hour and 20 minutes. It was so much fun!

The Boston skyline from the Charles River.This is a fountain right next to a reflecting pool outside the Church of Christ Scientist building. All these little kids were running through the fountain. Looked like a good idea to me.
Then we did what you absolutely have to do in Boston...went to a Red Sox game. My dad is a big Yankees fan and has raised his children to follow in his footsteps :). But despite my upbringing, I went to Fenway Park, cheered for the Sox (sorry Dad), ate a Fenway Frank, sang "Sweet Caroline" and the whole bit. We saw three home runs that night, including a grand slam over the "green monster." I loved the atmosphere. Fenway is such a cool stadium. Noel and I felt a little out of place though because we were not dressed from head to toe in Red Sox gear.
Noel chowing down on his Fenway Frank aka expensive hot dog. :)
The next day, we took a ferry to Martha's Vineyard. It was a perfect day. It was sunny and warm, but not too warm. Martha's Vineyard is beautiful. We rode the public bus out to part of the island called Gayhead to see the lighthouse there and go to the beach. On the bus ride there, we had to switch buses at the airport. At the airport we had a possible celebrity spotting. We swear we saw William H. Macey. If it wasn't him, it was somebody who could win a look-alike contest. We also got to walk on the beach. The water was too cold to get in and swim, but it felt soooo nice to walk in the water and cool my feet down.
The ferry ride back from Martha's Vineyard.

The next day (Saturday) we traveled back to Rochester, packed the car, and drove back to Lexington on Sunday. It was an awesome trip. We definitely enjoyed it since it was our last big trip before the baby arrives--about 2 more months :).

Last post of the day

This is the last one for today...I promise. I hit my 28 week mark of the pregnancy a week ago. I'm feeling pretty great overall, and I am definitely showing. :) Here is a glamorous picture of me at 28 weeks. You will have to excuse the get-up...we were painting.

Cumberland Falls

A few weeks ago, Noel surprised me with a weekend trip to Cumberland Falls State Park in southern Kentucky. The state has some nice parks with resorts to stay at for a very reasonable price. I took my personal leave day on that Friday, and we headed down. It was a nice, pretty drive, and it only took about 2 hours to get there. We stayed in a cottage at the state park. It is a really nice place. There are tennis courts, horse back riding, swimming, playground equipment, hiking trails, a lodge/hotel, etc. It would be a great place to stay for a few days for a family reunion.

The area right around the falls is very nice as well. There are paved paths all around with some look out areas to get pictures of the falls. Here is a picture I took. Not as good as Noel's pictures but pretty good for me.
Saturday morning we ate breakfast at the lodge. Here the view from the lodge balcony.


Then we paid a little visit to the birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken, "Sanders Cafe." It's now a museum; we didn't go in because we were mostly interested in just getting our pictures out front.
When we got home, we went frolfing, folfing, frisbee golfing, disc golfing (whatever you prefer to call it) with Jeff, Melea, and Maddox. Jeff received some discs for his birthday, and we had a ton of fun breaking them in. It was an awesome weekend!

Painting the Nursery

We painted the bedroom for the baby (aka Turbo). We saw this cute way to paint it while we were searching for bedding online. It was a dark brown on the bottom, a dark blue line in the middle, and a light blue on top. When we tried to recreate it, it did not quite turn out how we wanted. We made the dark blue stripe too big. So we went back to the store and got some plain white paint and covered up all but 1 inch of the dark blue. I say "we," but really Noel did all of the fixing. I was too sore from just painting the brown. I'm such a wimp. I did help tape though (can you tell I'm really digging for justification of my laziness). But here is how it ended up. I just love it!

School's Out for the Summer!

I'm shedding tears as we speak because I don't get to teach all those lovely children on Monday (yeah right). I love teaching, but this has been a VERY challenging year. All of the special area teachers who get my class for an hour a day ask me all the time, "How do you deal with these kids all day? They would drive me crazy." We'll just say some days it was a short drive.
Even though it's been tough, I really do love those kids and will miss them. They made a TON of progress this year. That's one thing I love about first grade is that you can see the kids get better at reading, for example, everyday. They grow a lot as students. They come to you as nonreaders and leave you reading chapter books. I am also very proud to say that 90% of my kids are on grade level in reading. That's even with over half of my class being so low that they received reading intervention. So the intervention must have worked. :)
The last month of school is a little crazy and hectic with testing, field trips, and all the other activities. So here are a few little funnies we had over the last month.
We went to the Salato Wildlife Center in Frankfort. While we were eating our lunch on the grass, geese were wandering around us. One of the geese pooped (birds don't really have poop, my bird professor referred to it as dejecta. But I don't know if you can say the goose dejectaed. Anywho...), and all the kids went crazy. One of my girls who just cracks me up all the time said, "It's no big deal guys. Every animal poops!" Such wisdom.
There is a little boy in my class that comes in telling me some story everyday. He is so talkative and so funny. He has bright red hair. Well one day he came in telling me how his baby sister had really curly hair, it wouldn't go straight even when it is wet. I asked him if was red like his. "No. Her hair is blond. I guess she'll have to dye it so we can match." Good plan. He also told me one day, "I know the person who is going to be the next President."
"Really? Who?"
"I'm pretty sure my nana is going to be it."
Last one. Thanks to those who actually read this. It was really for me to be able to reflect, but it's nice to share with those who might get a little laugh out of my first graders. For Mother's Day we wrote acrostic poems (the ones where you write Mother going down the page and come up with a word that starts with each of the letters in mother). For "T" one of the boys wrote, "Ticks- she checks me for ticks." I about died laughing. It was great. For "Y" in Mother's Day, a girl wrote, "Yields when she is supposed to." I loved it!

Baby Connections

This last week, Noel and I both have been a little under the weather. We had colds that would just not go away (come to find out, we both had sinus infections). I took off last Monday but went to work the other days. My students were cracking me up because they kept saying, "Mrs. Dickens are you alright? Because you sound really funny." The funniest comment was during a reading group. I was having a particularly hard time talking because my nose was so stuffy. One of my little sweetheart students said, "Mrs. Dickens, is your baby making you talk that way?" When I explained that it was just because I had a cold, he said, "Oh. I thought it was the baby." I thought it was so cute. I also thought that it was pretty good for him to be processing and trying to make those connections. Good problem solving!

New Callings

Since we have been in this ward, Noel and I have been Primary workers. Noel taught the Valiant 11 class, and I taught the Valiant 9 class. Our Primary is HUGE (about 70 kids that come regularly), and we really enjoyed it because you never knew what was going to happen in Primary. One of our favorite experiences was a little sunbeam was saying the prayer in closing exercises, and she was very grateful. But she would not let her mom help her. "Thank you for Sadie's daddy. Thank you for all of the candy that I got for Halloween. Thank you for my birthday. Thank you for my pink tutu." And it went on. Let's just say that this prayer rivaled General Conference prayers in length. It was awesome! I laughed a good while after that prayer.
Anyway...about a month or two ago, Noel got a new calling. He is now the ward clerk. He is enjoying it. He likes having keys to the different rooms in the building. It makes him feel special.:) I think he misses the fun of Primary, though. And I got a new calling on Sunday. I get to stay in Primary, just now I'm the first counselor in the primary presidency. I'm really excited about it. The other ladies in the presidency are great! It will be a challenge with that many children in the ward, but I'm really looking forward to it. It should be tons of fun!

Ultrasound

Well...the much anticipated ultrasound was on Thursday. We are pleased to announce that we are having a BOY! We both thought the baby was a boy. The ultrasound was great! It was so cool to see our baby. It was so fun to see his little feet, arms, legs, and face. We even got to see him yawn. Aaaahhh. The lady doing the ultrasound (I don't know if she was the nurse practitioner or an ultrasound tech or what) said, "I hope you all have good tennis shoes because this one is a mover!" Now we affectionately refer to him as Turbo. According to the measurements, he is 1 pound, 1 ounce.

Little feet

The yawn

My 21 week stomach