It's time for a new post. New pics too..but those will have to come some other time. I'll just have to post the ones that I have for now even though they are two weeks old and older. I will at the end of this post.

I have two and a half more weeks of work left. I'm glad because the weather has been humid and hot and my ankles swell like the elephant man and it makes it hard for me to walk. I don't have toxema or anything like that...it is just how my body is reacting. Fun times.

I've been struggling lately...not so much with the pregnancy stuff, but with all of these changes that are going to happen and being so far from home and not having my family around and being so busy all of the time and not doing anything for myself. I feel like all that I do lately is for everyone else - teaching, my calling, housework, dishes, laundry and getting things together for the kid. I know that I am seriously lacking balance in my life but it is hard right now to find the time. When I woke up this morning to go to church I just felt like I couldn't cope. I went to sacrament and felt emotional there and then when I went to Primary to do music I lost it. I hadn't prepared anything substantial and I was feeling so tired and my ankles were like balloons. The Primary Presidency in my Ward is so awesome. They told me not to worry about it and to just take it easy and go to Sunday School if I wanted. I am so grateful for those good women there who love and care for me. I found Andrew and he actually took me home, which is what I needed.

I think that I overdid it yesterday too. Andrew woke me up at 5:30 to go with him to this place called Lake Pupuke where he was start a triatholon that he and two friends from work were doing. I got into my pjs and we got there 15 mins later. The guys started there swim and I sat and watched and looked after the cars and bikes with one of the other guys' wives who I chatted too. An hour later they came back from their swim and left on their bikes. Andrew was the last one and after he came in and got on his bike I left and took the car home. I went back to bed as soon as I got home and slept until 11. Andrew needed me to get a Warrant of Fitness for the car because it expired today (this is like Air Care) and told me the place closed at noon so I madly showered and got ready and got to the place to get it done. Next was off to the pet store to get food for Kuma and then to another store to pick up these salt and pepper shakers that we had ordered and then I went and picked up some bananas and then it was back home. I had just put on a load of laundry and sat down when he called me and needed me to drive across town to pick him up so up I went. I picked him up and we drove home and he took a shower while I hung the laundry and put another load on and then it started to rain so he helped me take the laundry off. Then we went to the mall to pick out a car seat because we still had 90 bucks worth of vouchers from our wedding and they expired soon and we wanted to put them towards something that would cost us a lot of money for the baby. We looked at Kmart and then finally bought a seat at this other baby place. The mall was busy because it was pouring rain outside. Then we went home and I started to make dinner and it was late by the time that we ate and I washed the dishes and went to bed. Andrew was sunburned and tired from his triatholon which took him all over the place (7 hours and some odd minutes) so I did the dinner and dishes. I realized this morning that I overdid it yesterday though. I need to take it easy a bit more. I am sure that the rendition of my day sounds boring but that was it.

Sometimes, especially lately, I feel so overwhelmed by life - if this makes any sense - and I have a hard time coping with it all. Andrew and I have been going to prenatal classes at the hospital where Baby Johncey is supposed to be born and to be honest, I don't like them. They are informative and all, but our instructor is so blunt to the point where she almost seems negative about labour and birth and everything. I know that labour and everything isn't going to be perfect and all fairy tale like, but she never seems to say anything positive about it. We have 4 more classes to go and I don't really want to go to anymore. I'd rather go to our RS Christmas meeting this tuesday and make an advent calendar instead of go to the class. I'll see. The classes are free anyways.

Laura reminded me that I haven't really written much about my actual pregnancy so while I think about it I'll do it now. Cravings - I haven't really had any. Mostly popsicles but this is probably because of the heat. I don't really think that I am eating much more than I normally eat. A lot of people have said that "i'm eating for two now" so it doesn't matter if I have a lot of food, but on the whole I am just eating pretty normally...trying to anyways. If anything I err on the not enough side. My midwife, my mom, Andrew's mom and a few other people think that we are having a girl. Andrew's mom especially is adamant that we are because there are 4 girls in his family and the first born of the the six is a girl. I still have a feeling that it might be a boy, but if it is a girl both of us will be just as happy. We don't mind what it is, as long as it is healthy. So far it is healthy and when I went to the last ultrasound my midwife told me that it is a pretty normal sized baby, not too big and not too small. This is a relief. I kind of have a feeling that it is normal sized because I'm just entering my 7th month and I'm big, but not super big. I am not sure what else to tell you all. I've asked my mom to pick up some sleepers and send them to us because they are hard to find here and the ones that I have found are either ridiculously expensive or are really cheap and still ridiculously expensive. One of the downfalls of living in a small country like NZ where there isn't a huge population is that there is not much competition in terms of brands of things so things here tend to be really expensive or hard to find. Oh how I miss WAL-MART and all of the variety in Canada! I can't want to come back for a visit and stock up on some things!

Anyways, without furthur adieu I'll post some pics of me. Here it goes.This is me on Nov 6th. I'm almost 25 weeks in this pic. I'm 28 weeks today.

The sun was in my eyes and my hair is a mess. Not the most flattering. This was taken on the same day.
A better one of me. Again on the same day. Note the bags under the eyes. I'm not sleeping the greatest these days. I'll try to get Andrew to take some more recent pics of me in the next couple of days.