Still in Texas

Travis and I have some very good friends, David and Stephanie, who just had a baby girl two weeks ago. Her name is Wednesday River and she was born a month early so she came out very tiny. 4 pounds, 15 ounces to be exact. Phew. Anyhoo, they asked us to be the godparents. !!! We decided to give them a little time on their own before we came barging into town. Or maybe it's a village? Thank goodness for paid leave - we took a four day weekend to visit the little new one! We drove for 9 HOURS and never left Texas. Not once. We're still in Texas. It's an itty bitty town-village northwest of Abilene. Ya. Look that up. It's called The-Middle-Of-Nowhere. It's definitely peaceful here. I realized last night that I haven't left this house since we got here. Maybe I'll go out into the driveway later.

When we got in on Thursday we went straight to the baby to check her out. For sure she is smaller in person than the photos show. She's up to 5 pounds now, so she's gaining weight! Check out the wee one:

I swear she eats every five minutes. And she barely fusses. Their doctor says that might change at her due date, but for their sake I hope she doesn't change!

Since we've been here we've done a lot of resting. It's been great because both Travis and I were having a bad week at work. It was BAD. Hopefully this trip will freshen us up so we can get back to a normal life. With raises. We've watched a few movies and David even broke out the Dance Dance Revolution. Wow. I'm tempted to buy an XBOX 360 just so we can get this game. It is an awesome workout. The best part is that it's fun too! Stephanie said that's why they bought it - to help her work off the baby weight. She only gained 12 pounds the whole time so I think she'll bounce back quickly. If only we could all be so lucky! I don't know how to rotate this video, but here's me in action!

Just cuz she's so darn cute, here are a few more photos:

Zoolander face:

Daddy feeding:

Mommy and Wednesday:

Weekend of Gadgets

Wow. I had (and am having) a good weekend! I should technically have today off from work to celebrate Martin Luther King day, but I have to go in for a couple hours to take care of something. The great thing is that while I'm waiting for my stuff to heat up I get to surf the internet! Now back to my weekend... For Christmas my mom gave me an iPod Nano and it is an awesome little piece of equipment. It's this gorgeous sea foam green color. The iPod requires the computer to charge and to download music or videos. Unfortunately we do not have a computer at home. So I am just now getting it up and running. We charged it last week at our friends' house. Even though there were no songs downloaded, I was still able to look through it (and play a few games) and I cannot get over the quality of the screen! It's this tiny little thing and I can see it clear as day. I am currently downloading songs and I bought a car charger this weekend, so now I get to use it! Yea!

The other amazing item I acquired this weekend was a new cell phone. I finally got insurance on it too. I don't know why I didn't have that earlier because I should not be trusted to hold a phone and be standing at the same time. Or sitting over any hard surfaces for that matter. My last cell phone was nothing fancy, but it did have a camera and it also had a working screen. That is, until I decided to walk and text after drinking a couple margaritas from this awesome Mexican restaurant in Galveston called Salsa's. Yummy. Nehoo, I dropped the darn thing on the tile floor and cracked my screen. Which meant no more texting for Nikki! I was in serious withdrawal. And besides that, I couldn't tell who was calling me or who I was calling. Travis' grandmother was nice enough to mail me her old one so that I could use it temporarily. I am grateful for that but I felt like I was living in the stone age! No camera and a simple silver flip phone. This weekend I went to Verizon and got a BRAND NEW PHONE. That I picked out! And it's so cute! They were having a deal: Buy one Chocolate, get a second free! My sister Ariel and I split the cost difference and made out with some darn awesome phones. It's been so long since I've had anything this fancy! Teehee. Here's a picture of it. This is the color Ariel got, mine is Blue Ice but I couldn't find a pic.

I am so fortunate to be able to have these things. Travis and I are doing alright.

Links Anyone?

You may or may not have had a chance to look through them already, but I have put up several links to other websites in the "Links Related To Me!" section. The first one is fairly explanatory on its own. I put this one of my husband Travis' MySpace page up in case you'd like to see how lucky I am. ;)

The second link is to my friend Alexa's blog. She's been at it for years and I think I've been reading it for about half that time. As I read her's in the past I thought of things I'd like to write about and that is partially why I have started my own web log.

I was actually introduced to the third link by Alexa. The author is a woman who lives in Utah with her husband, daughter and two dogs (and is pregnant with a second child). She considers herself a recovering Morman and she manages to crack me up to no end at least once a week. I don't know that I will have her wit in my writing, but hopefully I'll entertain someone at least once. Her story is amazing because she has come to live soley off of her and her husband's blogs. They get enough advertising to put on their websites everyday that they were able to quit their jobs and make blogging their full time jobs. Wow, huh? I don't aspire to get that great, but I do hope to get some of myself out there!

PS - Check out my Mihina lips:

The Beginning

I have been contemplating starting a blog for a while now. I've been posting occasionally on my other website (MySpace), which you can see under my contacts. Many of my friends have blogs and it seems like a good form of therapy, if nothing else. So I figured, why not?! I'm hoping that I'll get a blog up at least weekly, but I'm afraid I won't have that much to talk about. My life isn't crazy interesting. Same people, different place. Sometimes the same place. But we do try to get out there and do things. I cannot stand not having anything to do! When I mentioned "we" a minute ago, I was referring to my husband Travis and I.

To bring you up to speed on my life, I currently work in a research hospital as a research technician. It is the first job I have had since I graduated from college that I actually enjoy. My lab does work on viruses, which is not my first choice of employment. At least I'm in a lab in the science field. I would prefer to be doing behavioral research in marine biology, but it's been difficult to find a job here. Travis and I moved here in 2002 so I could go to school. We had planned to move to wherever our hearts desired once we graduated, but things didn't work out that way. First we wanted to get married, then money was tight. So we decided to stay for a few years to pay of some credit cards and build equity in a house. We bought our first house together in the beginning of 2007. It's a great little place, but not in the best of towns. That's probably why we got such a good deal on the place.

Since moving into our new home, we have acquired a dog. Travis wanted a dog and I thought I wanted a dog. Now I'm thinking I'm more of a small dog type of person. Or maybe I'm not a dog person at all. I do know for a fact that I am a cat person. We have three cats and they are my FAVORITE. They don't require constant attention and I can find them whenever I need a moment of peace. But Callaway (that's the dog) wants to be interacting EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY. It's very stressful. He is now 11 months old and still likes to chew on anything he can get his paws on. Once a month he pees in the house. He likes to dig holes in a yard (which is giving me qualms about starting a garden). And he barks everytime a leaf falls to the ground outside of the window. Not to mention that he constantly licks at any exposed skin he can get to. IE, hand hanging out of the bed at night, swinging hand while walking, face hanging over edge of bed, etc. Ahhhhh!! Someone told us to try giving him fish oil on a daily basis because he might have some sort of a nutrient deficiency that is leading to licking EVERYTHING. We've been on this for almost two weeks now. This person said it won't start to work until half the bottle is gone. We're still waiting... If anyone has recommendations, please let me know. Thanks!