She came!

Abigail Claire Zwahlen came to us on December 30, 2007. She weighs 9 pounds and 4 ounces and is 22 inches long. Both mom and Abby are doing just fine. More pictures will follow.

Halfway Through

The moment has finally come when we can say that Roy is halfway through Law School. We are very, very, very excited about that! Not that the halfway point marks anything more than about 16 classes, countless books, and about 6 weeks of stressing through finals, but we are excited to say we have survived thus far. It's not really fair for me to say that I have survived law school (though I sometimes feel like I should get some kind of spouse's degree because of all the random law information I now have stored in my brain), but Roy has most definitely survived and done well. For those of you who know Roy at all know that he doesn't get giddy very often, but he was giddy when he walked in from his last final on Wednesday night. It was so fun to see him so excited! We are very excited not only to be halfway done and through this round of finals, but we are thrilled to have a Christmas break together.

Although he did a bit of complaining at first, Roy is very grateful for the "to do" list I created for us to complete over Christmas. We managed to knock a few things off the list in the last couple of days, including finishing our Christmas shopping, doing our laundry, and installing the car seat. So, Abby, we are now very ready for you! Your car seat is in the car, your clothes in the dresser, and every morning we wake up wondering if today is the day we get to meet...we are 1 1/2 weeks away from the due date (January 1).

That is the update on the Zwahlens. If you have complaints about our "boring" day-to-day life blogs, I apologize, but blame Sarah :) who reminds me that she checks our blog every other day. Hopefully, we will soon have more fun stories and experiences to share as Abby should soon (and who doesn't like to talk about her baby?).

Here is a picture of Sarah, Annie, Tena, Carrie, and I at my Utah baby shower:

Ode to Our Smoke Detector

This blog will have no pictures attached, but if I could attach a sound I would do it. It is not a sound you would normally want to hear and thus why the sound makes this story even funnier.

On Monday, I decided that we really needed monkey bread for dessert. For those of you who have not been introduced to monkey bread, it is chopped up refrigerator rolls dipped in butter and cinnamon sugar and it is heavenly! Some of the cinnamon sugar-butter mix dripped into the oven and set off the smoke detector. We hurriedly took out our precious monkey bread and turned off the oven. A few minutes later our smoke detector went off again so we turned on the stove fan and opened up the three windows we have, creating a sort of wind tunnel. I thought I would remember to wipe out the oven when it cooled down, but alas, pregnancy makes you forget things (at least that's what I'll blame it on).

To make a long story short, we cooked again on Tuesday and set off the smoke detector once again. Once again, we had to create our wind tunnel to air out the apartment. When the oven cooled down this time, Roy was nice and cleaned it out using all-purpose cleaner. We experimented and set off the alarm again. So on Wednesday I went to the store and bought Easy-Off and sprayed it in the oven (for all concerned readers, it is fume free), letting Roy do the wiping out. And when we cooked dinner again on Wednesday, the smoke detector went off again. We decided to give it a third try of cleaning and sprayed tons of Easy-Off and let it sit overnight. After wiping it out, we discovered that turning on the oven set off the alarm again. Then we read the back of the bottle which clearly states to wipe out the cleaner with warm water....oops... In summary, we set off the smoke detector approximately 20 times in 4 days (a new record for both of us), created a wind tunnel in our apartment, and probably annoyed our neighbors at least 20 times in 4 days (sorry!). But, never fear, because the problem is solved!

Moral of the Story: After spilling in your oven, wipe it out. If you don't, you'll have to wipe it out with oven cleaner. And if you wipe it out with oven cleaner, make sure you follow the directions!

Saturday is a Special Day

This last weekend was so busy! We both managed to squeeze in a quick nap on Saturday afternoon...an attempt to make up for several restless nights. The baby, Abby, has decided that night time is a wonderful time to kick, jump, dance, do karate, and do any other moving that makes it so mom can't sleep. And as quiet as I tried to be, Roy had a hard time sleeping too. But we ended up having a great weekend!

On Friday night my friends here in Alexandria threw a baby shower. We are incredibly spoiled by family and friends. We got some very cute clothes, fun books and toys, and the car seat. It was a fantastic night and so fun to see friends and family!

On Saturday, we had a Zwahlen girls day out. It was really fun. Then we all went to dinner with the husbands and babies and then made it up to the temple to see the lights. I wish I could describe how cool the temple grounds looked! We read that there are 450,000 lights up and it was awesome. There were lights draped across trees and busheds and lights formed into the shape of flowers. It was beautiful! The first picture is of us last year and the second is from this year.

The Visitors Center displays nativity scenes from around the world and has about 10 Christmas trees that have different themes. I'm grateful for all the crafty people who can make the display and the trees look so gorgeous. Seeing the temple, the lfights, and all the nativities was a perfect way to kick off the holiday season.

Oh, Christmas Tree!

We decorated our Christmas tree last night. It's the first time we have decorated for Christmas together and it was a lot of fun. Last year was the Freebairn family Christmas in CA and we were too busy before leaving VA to decorate. So last night was our maiden voyage of Christmas deocrating and we were excited to share it with all of you! Enjoy the Christmas season!

Thanksgiving and Black Friday

We spent Thanksgiving down in Williamsburg with the Zwahlen side of the family. As is normal, we ate turkey, potatoes, cranberry sauce, and had 3 different kinds of pie. Michelle even had pie for a mid-morning snack the day after Thanksgiving. We really enjoyed playing with niece MaKayla and nephew Zachary and stealing them away from parents and grandparents as often as possible. We are lucky because they are finding all the fun things to try to destroy at grandma and grandpa's house so we know what tempting items and areas to baby-proof so we are prepared when Abby comes and is at the destruction stage.


One of the most fun parts of our long weekend was Black Friday shopping. Roy and I woke up at 4:30 and went to Walmart, Old Navy, and Target before collapsing. For those of you who know Roy, waking up that early is a bit of a miracle. But an even bigger miracle was what he said later in the day, "I could do this again next year." And, yes, that was in reference to early-morning shopping! We did some more eating and shopping that day and ended up completely stuffing our car. We're very excited to have purchased a camera, a rocking chair, some nursery items, and some fun Christmas gifts. All in all, our Thanskgiving weekend was productive school-wise, filling food-wise, and fun family-wise.

Exploring DC

One of the things Roy and I love doing is exploring all the fun places in DC, especially the ones that no one really knows about. Last weekend we went with some friends to a statue called "The Awakening". It is a statue of a man who looks like he is just waking up. It is huge! Just driving up to it, we were amazed by the size, but once you get right up to it, it's even more incredible. Here we are standing by the hand:

And here is Roy posing by the head with a little surprise for the statue/victim:

So for those of you wanting to come visit DC, we have lots of fun ideas of different places to go. The monuments and the Smithsonians and the other places along the Mall are, of course, must-sees, but there are also some places that even DC-area residents don't know about. And all those things make your trip to DC very worth it!