Still Newlyweds

This weekend Mario and I celebrated our 1st anniversary... I only mean this in the most positive sense, but I can't believe we've only been married a year! It has been a great year, truly one of the happiest of my life, but it's sometimes hard to remember what life was like when I wasn't married (until Tammy sends pictures of shopping trips to NYC and then I remember all too clearly the highlights!) I am a little shamed to be 8 months pregnant on my first anniversary, but I suppose there are those that already have kids by the time they reach one year!

But I am incredibly lucky and very much in love and think I have the greatest husband ever.

We went to dinner at this fantastic new restaurant and I had the MOST AMAZING chocolate mousse for dessert... and Mario kept saying how much he loved it because it reminded him of the restaurants in the US. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I think it's good??

Just to keep all updated on the belly expansion, here is a 32 week picture. By my calendar I am 32 weeks, but at my appointment the dr. said I was 33 1/2 weeks. Here's to hoping this baby comes sooner rather than later!

Groomless Weddings

Basically, that's what quinceñeras are. Huge parties at reception halls, big dresses, lots of presents, and no worrying about another family or someone else's opinions! A girl in our ward had hers this weekend and her family doesn't have a car so she asked me to be her chauffeur for the night.

Evidently it is imperative that all birthday girls take pictures at Parque Independencia, so in this shot alone you see no less than three mounds of satin and tulle, and there is a forth just off the the right that didn't make it in the shot. We had to wait for her to have her turn to take a picture in front of the flowers that spell out the date at the entrance to the park.

Ruth and I in front of the Corsa, all decked out with bows and ribbons to match her dress...

Easter

All of Mario's family was here for Easter so I took the opportunity to force a little American tradition upon them, and we colored eggs and then had an Easter Egg Hunt at the church. Lots of fun, but we ended up with one hard-boiled egg missing... didn't smell anything at church on Sunday, so I'm hoping one of the little kids got it and I missed it in the count???

Pilar showing us her orange egg.

Victoria drawing intricate artwork onto an egg.

Pablo got tired of coloring eggs so helped me make cupcakes instead.

Franco and Santiago left the PlayStation long enough to color a couple.

Pilar takes a break from eggs to devour a cupcake.

All the kids lined up at the church ready to go hunt for eggs.

Eduardo trumps us all with his enormous chocolate egg that was DELICIOUS!

I blew most of the eggs before coloring them because the shells kept breaking on the ones I hard-boiled, so breakfast the next morning features intense egg-requiring items like German pancakes...

The highlight may have been leaving all the kids to go eat at our favorite (and the only) Mexican Restaurant.

Eduardo, Paco, Esteban and Mario enjoying fajitas.

Left to right: Estella, Alicia, Eduardo, Paco, Esteban, Mario, me, Griselda.

International Shopping Sprees

I have nurtured a long-held belief that each part of the world holds an advantage in a distinct shopping opportunity. That is to say, you buy shoes in X country, gold in Y country and diamonds in Z country. However, my experiences in international travel and shopping have led me to the conclusion that ALL shopping is better in the USA!! As an enormous importer and consumer of goods with relatively low to non-existent import taxes, we have managed to get the cheapest prices on just about every commodity.

With that in mind, I made a trip home in March to participate in the great art of consumerism. It was fantastic. I shopped until I was literally sick of shopping, and still I persevered with the knowledge that shortly I would not be able to shop.

While there I managed to shop with Tammy, Paige and Jessica, and I'm pretty sure all my sisters were as burnt out on shopping as I was.

Tammy checking out the belly at an outdoor mall in Tucson.

With Jessica's daughter Jane in one of 783 home decor stores in 2 1/2 days.

I did manage to stay out of the stores long enough to watch my brother's three kids while he and his wife went on a cruise. They are cute, but I was not too distracted to shop online when nap time kept me from making it out of the house.

Lollipop Kid

Inspite of it's reputation as not quite keeping up with the "first world" in many aspects, I am finding there are a few advantages to being pregnant in Argentina.

First, I have my doctor's cell phone number, so when I have a strange pain in my side on a Saturday afternoon, I just call him and he tells me if I need to worry or not and what to do about it.

Second, they have this amazing general policy of priority for pregnant women. So in place of your traditional handicapped parking spots, malls etc. have the first parking spots reserved for pregnant women. And, I get to SKIP LINES!!! Almost all stores have a pregnancy priority line where you skip to the front of the line. When the grocery store is crowded beyond control, I go to the front of the line. Today I had to go to a payment center to pay a bill, and I was called to the front of the line. One of the things that truly drives me crazy about Argentina is that you have to go wait in line somewhere to do practically everything. And now I have to go, but I don't have to wait in line! It is amazing. I'm going to get one of those fake belly pillows they give you in maternity clothing stores to use when I'm not pregnant...

Third, ultrasounds are really cheap and plentiful, so on Monday Mario and I went to our 4th ultrasound to check in a see what's going on inside my growing belly, this one a 4D. Now, I was kind of expecting the Discovery Channel video and it's wasn't quite that great, but it was still very cool. It's like a normal ultrasound but then every so often they switch the software they are using so it puts it in 3D (apprently the 4th dimension is sound, but we didn't hear anything more than the heartbeat we always hear...) So far the verdict is we have a child who is 3cm longer than normal for his development, long feet and hands, rather thin, with a good sized head and big fat cheeks! He's pretty much a lollipop. And he has hair! If he wasn't inside me I'd doubt my paternity to a round-headed child with hair, but I suppose this one I cannot dispute...

Here's the snapshot of his face, which also seems to indicate fantastically big lips, but we'll see! I think he looks distinctly male, but maybe that's just because I know?? I'd love to post part of the video online but I'm still trying to figure out how to covert .ifo format to .avi or .wmv. If anyone knows and wants to inform me, I'd be most pleased.