Specimen of the Day: Meet the Johns

Most of you know my family. Those of you who don't, should. Here they are when we were all together in April:

Front L-R: Carrie, Meredith, Alicia, Tina/Mom, Hillary, me
Back L-R: Anthony, Steven, Doug/Dad, Matt, Daniel

Why we love each family member:

Doug & Tina- Without them, this whole thing would not be possible. Doug does the best Michael Flatley (Riverdance) impression ever. Even in a tuxedo. Tina pretends she is upset when we are teasing her, but really she likes it. Also, she reads Vietnam-era novels aloud like nobody's business. Doug is a podiatrist and Tina is a high school physics teacher.

Anthony & Carrie- The oldest brother. He fulfills his role so well. In fact, Anthony joined Daniel in potty-related conversations only when we saw him last. Anthony will be called Uncle Boom by our children. Ask Daniel what that means. Carrie has the best zingers about Anthony. She also tells us about awesome stuff Anthony does like eating a bowl of raw brownie batter for dinner and getting sick when she was out of town. Anthony and Carrie are both working on Master's degrees right now in Missouri.

Meredith & Steven- My sista. 19 months older. Meredith and I can laugh together like no one else. She likes family history. She has a lymphangioma/splaysia. She sweats a lot sometimes. Steven is a doctor-to-be. But don't ask him about shoulder problems; he probably doesn't even know! Geez. He likes Super Mario Bros 3. Meredith and Steven are leaving Provo, off to a bigger and better life in medical school.

Us- You know us if you are reading this. Hopefully. What we look like lately:

Alicia- Oldest of the little kids. Unfortunately, the 3 younger kids will always be called that, but they'll get over it. Maybe. We tease Alicia a lot and I always thought Daniel was the teasing instigator. Not so. We recently watched some long lost home videos (aka John tapes) from about 1996 and found that I spent the whole time making fun of her mercilessly. She took it just as well back then as she does now. She screamed at me to stop "making in front of her". :) She seems to be prevailing despite the teasing. She is a decent cook, just don't ask her boil eggs. Alicia is spending the summer in D.C. as an intern through BYU's Washington Seminar program.

Hillary- I told Hillary once that she is the most inconsiderate considerate person I know. She is constantly thinking of things she can do for others, but it is often at the inconvenience and expense of my parents. Really, it is all for other people and sometimes it is hard for her to understand why my parents aren't as excited about doing service for her friends as she is. Hillary probably wins the best all-around award for the John children. She is gorgeous, smart (has a 4-year scholarship to BYU), musical, and has social skills that many people lack. She knows better than to pick her nose in front of others. Hillary will be a freshman at BYU in the fall.

Matt- The best younger brother you could ask for. He used to make 400-slide PowerPoints on the NBA, but he has moved on to youtube videos. He still leaves legal pads full of NBA analyses around the house. His favorite game is to ask people obscure sports-related questions like "Who was the biggest flop coming out of the 1994 NBA draft?" Matt works as a cashier at the local drug store and will be the only child at home next year. He told Meredith he is ready to be an uncle, so hopefully he's ready to change some diapers in August!

On this day in 1993 & 1994...

My journal entries closest to today's date in 1993 and 1994 seem to have a theme. My treatment of my journal as a person (albeit one that cannot see) seem to be at an all-time high.

"Sunday May 2, 1993- Today is Fast Sunday. Da!!! Sorry I haven't talked to you in so long. Oh! That bang was the stool falling over. Alicia knocked it over. I'll tell you a secret I just ate some popcorn even though I'm not suppose to. Don't tell anyone though. Okay? Thanks, I always knew I can count on you. I wonder what were having for dinner. Hold on. I'll be right back. I just went to get something. I hope were having a good dinner. Today my lesson was about missionarys. Also Abraham and seed. Are you baptized? Oh yea! You just got baptized last week. How could I forget. Well wow your related to Abraham. Seed means related. And in our church if you get baptized then you are reltaed to Abraham. The End. See ya as soon as I can."

"April 24, 1994 Sunday- You know what's weird? It seems like I'm only writing to you on Sundays. Sorry. I'll try to write more often. I got my... No I shouldn't tell you. Try to guess. Oh yea sorry. I was thinking you could see. I got my hair cut! Can you believe it? My hair was down to my waist, and now my hair is about medium long. It's up to my shoulders. Probablly if you cut my hair another 3 to 4 inches shoreter it would be up to my shoulders. Meredith's hair is about an inch longer then to her shoulders. For once my hair is longer than hers! My hair seems so much shorter. Pepople might not notice mom said. I think people will. Don't you? I knew you would. In two weeks it's the Spring Fling for our school. The Spring Fling is really, much better than the Wellington Fair. At the Wellington Fair there are no rides. Not even the Moon Walk! I mean even at the Spring Fling one year there was even a Ferris Wheel. The day of the Spring Fling Mom and Dad are going to be out of town. I'm staying with Katherine McEllen. It's just for the weekend too. Alicia and Matthew are going with Mom and Dad. I'm so glad! Hillary is staying with the Bennett's and so is Meredith. Anthony is staying with either the Hook's or the Brauns."

Our blog sucks...

I promise there will be some good posts soon.

Shoes, shoes, shoes

My grandmother passed away last week (you can read about her here and here) and among other things, she left a legacy of shoes. Literally. Well over 200 pairs of them. The problem? She's a size 6. After the size-6-footed female relatives had scored dozens of pairs each, the remaining mountains of shoes were up for grabs. Us big-footed relatives wanted a way to remember Grammie and her shoes also.

Meredith and I came up with the following:
Shoe art! What could be better? It was surprisingly difficult to find shadow boxes deep enough to fit shoes, but after that challenge was overcome the real creativity began.
My brown/navy themed piece. That navy shoe in the middle is a Ferragamo. We figure Grammie must have bought it when the Italian-designed-and-produced shoes averaged less than $800 each. Grammie was proud that she never spent more than $20 on shoes.
Meredith's red/black/white piece. Yes, all these shoes were my grandmother's. We hardly made a dent in the shoes left.
A piece of shoe art we made for my mom. Sorry to ruin the surprise, mom! I can promise you it looks better in person when the flash isn't reflecting off the glass.

Commuting With Carly

Come with me as we explore the sights on my way home from work.

1. On-ramp stoplights
Look closely at those signs. How did no one notice the typo?

2. High quality billboards
Spicing things up since 1990!

3. Center Street off-ramp
The bane of my existence. This off-ramp doubles my commute time. I won't complain too much since that time is 12 minutes.

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I do each day!

Correction- Daniel's surgery is going to be April 30th, not May 30th. (For all those of you who care)

No Fun

That is what I will have this summer. Zero fun. After the great summer of '08 (lots of sports and different activities to keep us busy) I fear that '09 will be the anti-summer of '08. I say this because I scheduled my ACL surgery today for May 30 and that means that the next few months will suck for someone who has their fun by playing sports. The biggest disappointment is that I can't play kickball this summer and if you recall from our posts last summer I really enjoy kickball. That means that I will never reach the pinnacle of kickball like our friend from previous posts so clearly did in this picture.


After my surgery I will be bored for a while so anyone who gets bored is more than welcome to bring me a slurpee. I will also accept any other food donations. In fact feel free to make these donations at any point in time before or after the surgery.

It's a Boy!!!!

That was a test to see who actually reads our blog posts because we are actually going to have a girl!!! The doctor said she will never say she is 100% sure of the sex, but after seeing the ultrasound myself and using my 5th grade sex ed knowledge of the female anatomy I too concluded that we were going to be having a girl. I was so excited and had visions of my daughter spitting up on me, doing funny things like Elly, and playing basketball. And after that brief moment of excitement reality set in.

These are a few of the points of reality that I have thought of since this morning. I will judge them on a scale from 1-10 with 1 being "I guess I can handle that" and 10 being "What have I done".

1. I will be pooped on multiple times. I give this a 1 mainly because I expect to get pooped on. I may even laugh. I don't know why it took finding out the sex to think of this, but it wasn't an issue until today.

2. My daughter could possibly dislike sports and all that has to do with them. I give this a 5 because sports takes in most of my hobbies, but out of love I would try to get over it and enjoy my daughters hobbies. (I reserve the right to change my ruling to a higher number if my daughters only hobby is watching musicals. No worries though cause her mom and her would watch them together.)

3. My wife could spend all of our dough on cute stuff for this kid. She already sent me links to baby girl dresses today. I give this a 4 because I don't want to spend the money, but Carly is a bargain shopper so I figure I can deal with it with limited annoyance. The fact that when I told my mom it was a girl she said, "Let the shopping begin," makes me think this little girl will have more than enough clothes. (A boy would have been great because they are easy. All they need is shirts with dinosaurs and animals, but now it will be flowers and stuff like this.)

4. I am now outnumbered in my house. No matter what I say I will now be out voted. I give this a 6 because I can handle it, but it sucks because unless my girl loves watching sports I will never get to pick what to watch. (This does however help my future argument for a man room with a good tv.)

5. My daughter will date at some point. I know this is a part of life, but there is a lot of riff raff out there. I give this a 7 because I am sure it will be fine, but there is just enough of a chance she will date losers that it causes some stress.

Clearly there are many more things I could have thought about that are much more important than what I have listed, but those are the things I thought of. Now that I have babbled on for way too long I will introduce you to baby girl nielson. Ignore the immodesty of one of these pictures.

Crotch shot.

Here is our little alien. The face is sideways.Legs. I told Carly to give her more room in there. She needs room to stretch out in the picture on the right.

D-Day

Today I decided that from straight on I don't look pregnant. Daniel laughed at me. After I saw the picture I laughed too. What do you think?
Sometimes it all seems fake. Then I am faced with the reality of pictures like this. I guess I understand now why people keep asking me if I am having twins or if I am further along than I think. Nope, no multiples, and still 20 weeks. Just a short torso.
We bought a used rocker/recliner for the baby's room on craiglist for $60. Daniel loves it and he wants it in the living room until the baby comes. Where can we fit a big chair in our living room? Nowhere. There is about 6 inches of space between the back of the chair and the coat hooks. When the chair is reclined there is no space.

Oh, and Nielson fetus = boy or girl? 38 hours and counting....