Funny Babies

Since we are still without a child of our own, we have to entertain ourselves by watching others'. My brother is home from college this week for Christmas and the other night showed us how he spends his free time--searching for funny videos on YouTube. Here was my favorite that I just had to share:

Baby Showers, but no Baby!

It's true, the due date has come, but our little one hasn't. Instead of sitting and being sad, I thought I would take the extra time I have with the baby being on the inside and so easy to take care of to post! Who knows when I'll have the time or energy for posting once she actually comes out.

Anyway, I just wanted to show you the adorable cakes from the baby showers people were so nice to throw. This one below is from my coworkers, who actually created a bassinet for the top made out of ding dongs and twinkies. Isn't it so cute?!?! Who knew it would end up to serve as a great object lesson when we were asked to substitute teach the five year olds in church the next Sunday!!



Then at the Lacey shower, the all amazing and talented Jenn make a "cake" out of diapers and receiving blankets. If you aren't wowed enough just from this picture, please click on it and zoom in to see her impressive handiwork. I really hated taking it apart, but it turned into four whole shoeboxes worth of diapers!! Those are going to be needed (hopefully very soon).

My adorable niece Jadyn was more attracted to the flowers on the cake than the diapers and promptly requested they be used in her hair and proceeded to pose. I just had to share the cuteness!

Thanks to everyone who put so much effort into helping us get ready for the baby. Hopefully we will have some good news for you soon!

Eight Month Belly

Since it has been over a month since I last showed off the belly, I thought I would document its progress and share it with all of you long distance friends. I tried to keep the same shirt and the same spot for more ease of comparison. We had our latest doctor's appointment on Tuesday and she said everything is looking great and moving along nicely. Only 26 days to go!! Of course I am hoping for less--an early arrival would be nice.



Except of course for the fact that we still haven't done any shopping, despite all the great advice that I got from so many of you. But we officially had our last day working in the temple and I only have two more weeks of work, so hopefully we will now have some time to get everything ready for the arrival of the papoose.

I just wanted to say that I really appreciated all the advice, by the way, even though I haven't been able to thank you individually like I have wanted to. You don't know just how much all of you helped orient me into the baby world. Aaron is impressed by my knowledge on what we need to prepare, and I'm just thankful I have such good friends. You are the best!!!

Good Luck Brady

Last weekend we made the 10-hour pilgrimage to Aaron's motherland. Yes, at eight months pregnant Aaron and I along with his sister and brother-in-law all packed into the little Mazda 3 for the long journey. They were nice enough to put up with my need for frequent stopping because we had a worthwhile cause: Aaron's youngest brother Brady was giving his farewell speech before taking off for the next two years to serve a mission.

He actually reported to the MTC today to serve in the Raleigh, North Carolina Mission. Here is the Anderson clan right after he was set apart.

Of course it was an emotional time for the family, but we are all really excited for him and know that he will be an excellent missionary. It was really nice to see all of Aaron's relatives and appreciate how supportive they all are of the big events in everyone's lives. My own brother even hitched a ride with a couple of Aaron's cousins down from Ricks to join in the festivities. A big thanks to everyone and our best wishes to Brady in his new adventure!

Calling all Moms

So some of the ladies at work have been continually asking when I am going to register the little papoose. I haven't done this yet because it feels a little strange, but I am thinking it is getting to be time. If they want to buy her presents, who am I to say differently?! Since I am a bit overwhelmed when I think about what babies need, I thought I would poll some of you ladies for your experienced advice. I would appreciate you sharing your thoughts on what things you couldn't have lived with out in those early days and now, what things you never use, what things your little ones love, etc. You can post a comment or send an email to rebeccabanderson@yahoo.com.

In the Spirit of October

Now that I am so experienced with ultrasounds after having my second one, I understand the comments that people made saying the last ultrasound picture was one of the best they had ever seen. We went in last week for a follow-up and this is the picture that we were left with. If you ask me (and I don't mean this to any offense of our unborn child, only to the ultrasound tech), it is a little bit on the spooky side. Just in case you can't tell what it is, I will post it vertically for you as well.



Amazingly from this picture, Aaron was able to conclude that she does indeed look like me. Hmmmm....not sure what to make of that. We did find out though that she weighs in at 3 lbs, 6 oz, so she will probably be a good sized little baby when she pops out.



While Aaron is working in Spokane, I thought I would host my own photo shoot so I could show you what she's looking like from the outside these days too.

P.S. I don't mind anyone praising me for not waiting a month to post since the last time I posted. :)

Summer Exploring

Once again, it has been awhile since we have posted. I know, I know, you would think that we would learn our lesson at some point, but I guess I am just a slacker at heart. Instead of telling you all of our stories, I figured that I would just post a slideshow and you could read the captions to see all we have been up to the past little while. If any of it sounds especially interesting to you, feel free to drop me a line and ask about it.

Surgery Gone Wrong

Many of you probably already heard about our little medical trauma last month, but just in case you didn't, I will summarize. Aaron first went in to the doctor because he was concerned about a mole he had on his leg that seemed to be growing. After a biopsy, they couldn't figure out if it was cancerous or not. When they told Aaron that they would have to take another piece out, he told them to go ahead and take it all--he didn't want any of it anyway. We were happy to hear that during surgery they discovered it wasn't the mole that was growing, but there was actually a cyst underneath it that was causing the problem...but definitely not causing cancer.

So we thought we were okay, just a little tortured by the fact that Aaron was not allowed to even so much as go on a walk for exercise. That is...until his wound starting stinking and oozing when we were in Utah for his cousin's wedding...I know, lovely picture. We weren't sure exactly what was going on because it was still covered by the steri strips (and we both don't know anything about that sort of thing). The night we got back from Utah Aaron decided to take a peak and found that the stitches had actually burst and everything was infected. So we went to the ER and they fixed us up (after taking a look at his leg and asking if he had tried to remove the cyst himself), but now his wound just has to heal naturally over the next few MONTHS. They couldn't try to close it up because the tissue was so sensitive.

Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of it at its peak of grotesqueness for those of you who enjoy that sort of thing, but here it is starting to heal.



And just in case you wanted a little closer shot of it, we thought we would provide that for you too.



After having something he has grown removed from him, he feels ready to empathize with what I'm getting ready to experience in childbirth.

It's a Girl!

Hey Everyone! Many of you know already, but we thought we'd share the news online as well. We had an ultrasound about a week ago and found out we'll be having a girl! It was cool watching the ultrasound because she was alive and kicking...literally. We thought she had learned how to kick and punch like that from our excersize videos that we do.

Anyways, here's the profile:





So who do you think she looks like? Aaron or Becca?

Aaron the Entertainer

Our friends Dave & Arielle recently moved back from Colorado/Texas with their cute new baby Grayson. We had them over for dinner the other night, but weren't prepared for what little Grayson had in store for the post-dinner entertainment. This is one small video, but the laughter went on and on for so long that we were all in pain by the end. We thought we'd share it with you.

Old Friends in New Places

As many as you know, I was back on the road again recently for work. Aaron was a little worried about me making this trip alone while being pregnant, but I couldn't convince him to go with me. So instead I twisted the arm of my good friend Jennie Arrington. We have known each other since we were eight years old, but haven't spent much time together since her family moved from Texas to Florida and mine to Washington. Atthe last minute she was able to go with me to three of the four cities on my latest recruiting trip and I thought I would share some photos of the places we were able to go when I wasn't running around to all my appointments. This first one is of us at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan.



This giant Buddha is at a monastery that is located not too far from where I served my last area of my mission in Kaohsiung, but it was just far enough as a missionary to not have taken the trip to see it. This was only one of thousands and thousands of Buddhas we saw that day, but it was definitely the most impressive!



This is still at the monastery, but we were DYING it was so hot!!! I thought it was hot enough being pregnant in Washington, but those 2.5 weeks in Asia really did me in, I tell you what. Jennie and I had to reward ourselves for our forbearance of the unbearable heat with a little ice cream. From that day on out, ice cream was all I wanted.



From Taiwan we went to Hong Kong and actually had the sunniest weather I have ever seen there. For our first day we were able to take the Ferry across to Hong Kong island before I started working and actually got some nice views.



This one is taken from "The Peak" looking down to the Harbor below. The last time I was in Hong Kong, pretty much all we could see from up here were clouds and smog, so Jennie and I were definitely excited.



This was also my first time to go to the Hong Kong temple. I don't know if you can even tell I am in the picture, but I am that tiny little dot in front. We had enough time on our last day to go through a session and meet a friendly old man afterward. He was so chatty, wanted to tell us his whole life story, and then wouldn't you know it, we ran into him the next day at church too! And I ran into my mission president's wife as I was heading into the ladies' room. It's a small world, I tell you what.



So there we have just a few pictures, though Jennie took about 500 I think. If you want to see a few ore you can check out my Facebook (if you are my Facebook friend, of course!!). Hope it's convincing all of you to want to come on my next trip with me!!

Sharing Time

Hey folks! I know some of you complain that we don't write in here often enough, and it looks like it has been another month!! I figured I ought to come on here though and let everyone know that hasn't already heard or observed my burgeoning size, but I am prengant!! For those of you who haven't heard, I apologize for the impersonal blog, but we just haven't been the best at broadcasting our news. I am 16 weeks along, which gives us a due date of December 16th. In case you are curious, here is an idea of what a 16 week fetus looks like.



I think the worst of my morning sickness has passed and I am starting to feel much better now. Except for the wild hormonal emotional swings that is--thanks Aaron for being so patient with me and such a big help and support!

We are scheduled for our ultrasound on August 1st after I get back from my next trip, so we will be sure to post those pictures and let you know what the sex of the little one is. Hope all is well!

Baria Family Bonding

So for Memorial Day weekend we Barias have a tradition of taking a little family vacation. Okay, so this is only our third time doing it, but we had to come up with new traditions now that most everyone is out of the house, we no longer have the Aerostar, and no longer drive to Utah all together each summer. This time we headed down to Sunriver, OR for the weekend and had a great time. Not great weather, but a great time.

Here is part of the clan going rafting down the Deschutes. It was actually the perfect weather for hitting the water, but that was right before it started hailing!!



Here is a good action shot of us so that you can tell we were really working hard and truly becoming one with nature.



The next day we took a quick jaunt down to the beautiful Crater Lake. Here are Aaron and I at the top of the lake... before it started hailing.




The last day of the trip we came home via Silver Falls State Park. It's this really beautiful park where you can hike to TEN different water falls! The whole clan hiked to the first one.



Here is a great shot of just the two of us.



The end.

Changing your Name

I saw this on a friend's blog and thought it would be fun to do:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 2,034 people with my name in the U.S.A. http://howmanyofme.com">How many have your name?

It actually tells you the statistics of both of your names too! I thought I would do a little comparison with my maiden name since I was always so proud of its uniqueness:

HowManyOfMe.com

There is 1 person with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Can you believe I went from the ONLY one in the country with my name to one of 2000?!?! And Aaron wondered why changing my name was so much to swallow at first. I know, I know, it's so hard for me to feel like as much of an individual, but I am doing my best!! I went from having the 75677th most popular last name to the 10th most popular. So in reality I should feel pretty cool!! Let's see how cool Aaron is:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 1,145 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Fun Times in Alaska

Hey everyone! So this is my first time on this blog. Hasn't Becca done a great job?! I decided to give her a little break for Mother's Day : ) Anyways, I know you're all dying to hear about our Alaska trip so I'll give you a little run-down and then show some sweet pics of bears and whales and all that cool animal planet stuff. I went up to Juneau, AK last Monday for a convention for work. It was very beautiful (not quite as beautiful as Seattle, but close). I didn't know Juneau was in a rainforest and that the area receives about 150 inches of moisture per year. No more complaining about rain in Seattle! The first couple days were pretty fun. Just worked and ate at local places and chatted with the locals. The coolest part of the first day was going down on the water and seeing a few whales and a beautiful Alaska sunset (I have a picture of it later on in the post)

When Becca arrived we had a lot of fun going around and seeing the sites of Juneau. I think our favorite day was taking the glacier tour to Tracy Arm. The sun was shining and the whales, bears, birds, and mountain goats were out as well. Here are a few pictures:



Becca and I in front of a glacier holding some glacial Ice





In the distance there's a whale spouting...if you squint your eyes hard enough you can see the whale!

Picture of ice calving from the glacier. It makes a huge crashing sound as it falls into the ocean and causes a wake in the icy water.

We saw a few goats, but this one actually posed for us and trimmed up his beard!

Here's the sunset I saw the day before Becca arrived.

This is a video of whales...the boat's a little loud so I apologize...we did see a whale that came right up next to our boat and when I went to take it's picture the battery died. I'm not lying...I promise!


So to sum everything up, Alaska's a beautiful place and full of adventure. We liked the wildlife and the beautiful scenery. However, after a few days we started getting restless and actually decided to come home to good old Washington where it still has ocean water, wildlife, beautiful scenery, civilization, and most importantly our family!

A Quick Florida Getaway

So I am not smart enough to have my slideshow be a part of my post, so I am doing them separately. Hopefully you will be able to see the pics and the message in the same place!! Anyway, Aaron's company is based in Fort Lauderdale so he invited me to go down with him for some good times. I probably had more good times than he did since he had training to go to, but we had great times together after he was finished. We checked out the Everglades, Miami, and Key West. It was a whirlwind trip, but a lot of fun!!

Happy Birthday Aaron!

Hey everyone! I know it has been awhile since I posted anything--I guess you can tell when I have a lot of down time in the hotel room by myself and when I am at home!! Today is Aaron's 30th birthday, so we thought we would share some pictures of our celebration. His sister Meghann had her birthday on Friday, so we had a fun joint party at their Mom's.



Then tonight we had a few friends over for a little sushi party. We got a kit as a wedding present and thought we would finally put it to use. It turns out we are all naturals and are thinking of opening up our own sushi restaurant. Aaron's birthday celebration continues next Sunday combined this time with my sister, so stay tuned for more birthday pics.

Back in Taiwan

So I went back to Taiwan for work last week, this time without Aaron. It's funny that all the other times I have been to Taiwan I never had Aaron with me and it seemed just fine. But this time, now that he had set the precedent, it just didn't seem the same. It was still really good to see old friends though and get to do a little exploring. I had one of our former BCC students take me somewhere I had never been (and didn't even know existed), a hot springs museum, so I thought I'd share a couple photos. Here I am in front of the old pool:


Taiwan has hot springs all over the island, but just north of Taipei is where they were first discovered. When the Japanese came to rule over Taiwan, they built this public bathhouse as a way for all people to be able to bathe in the hot springs water and therefore partake of its healing properties.



If you are really interested in reading the full story, you can go to this site: http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/gogo/goen_33.htm. Fascinating, I assure you. Here is another shot of us outside where they tap the water in from:

American Idol Crazy

It's true. I am now a weekly watcher. Aaron's family has sucked me right in--it's family bonding time!! But you really should check out the David Archuleta videos and song on the playlist to the right. He's pretty impressive.

A Surprise Belated Valentine's

I think I said in one of my last posts that we spent our first Valentine's Day as a married couple thousands of miles apart. Terrible, I know. To make up for it, Aaron planned us a surprise retreat to Salish Lodge, Seattle's Resort and Spa upon my return from my marathon trip. For those of you not from the area, it is actually just east of Seattle, sitting atop Snoqualmie Falls. You know we have a thing for waterfalls, so this was the perfect place to take a much needed break from work and just spend some time together. We had fantastic weather and the place was beautiful; I recommend it for all looking for a nice little getaway. The food was amazing, the service excellent, and we had our own wood-burning fireplace in our room. Just be careful when you go up to the spa--if you sit next to the mini-waterfall it just might put you in a near unconcious state and you could almost miss your dinner reservation!!

More About the Middle East

So even thought that post about Kuwait didn't have the nicest tone to it and everything in that country seemed to be the color of dirt and that all I wanted to do the minute I got there was leave, I would say the Middle East wasn't THAT bad. This tour started out in Dubai, which I had had a lot of anticipation for with all the hype it has been getting lately with their palm islands and seven star hotel and such. I think if I hadn't worked it up so much I would have been fine with it--I should have followed Aaron's advice--keep your expectations low and you'll always be happy! In general UAE was a lot more welcoming than Kuwait. The first day we arrived we had a FABULOUS lunch at the hotel NEXT to the seven star hotel, so we were almost really cool. It was a really nice resort itself--rooms and villas ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 USD per night and a cool canal running through it (we even got to take a little boat ride through it. I snuck onto the private beach and snapped a photo of the seven star hotel shooting out of my head (rooms from 6,000 to 28,000 per night!!).

It was crazy just how much building there is going on in Dubai. Every single road we drove on had something being built. The main street in Dubai had crane after crane after crane. According to the Gulf News, Dubai has about 30,000 or 24% of the world's cranes right now. But for all the progress and development and skyscrapers they have and all that, I would still have to say that I liked Istanbul a LOT more. It was by far my favorite part of the trip. It's quite the opposite of Dubai, an ancient city with buildings hundreds of years old--and no skyscrapers. The people were wonderful, the food delicious, the mosques incredible, the setting beautiful. The only problem was that we had a blizzard for 2.5 days and I was only there for 4. The other I guess being the fact that my shipment of school materials did not arrive until the second day of the education fair. I found this out when I was stranded in Kuwait and was so mad at DHL and couldn't do one single thing about it. I had lined up one of our alumni to come work at the fair the first day since I was still going to be in Bahrain and she showed up there all ready to help out, with no material and no way of contacting me. Bless her heart.

So if you add that to the blizzard, we had a little damper put on attendance at the fair as well as my plans for touristing on my last day there. I was so depressed when I woke up the last morning and it was still snowing--I had been so exciting to see the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque and there I was so close and I couldn't even see them. Schools were closed, government offices were closed, and all the taxis and even hotel cars were not driving. So I had no choice but to sit in the hotel room all morning (which did give me a little time to work on the blog though, definitely something you need to travel to Turkey to do). But around 2:00 my luck turned and it stopped snowing. Then the sun and blue skies even came out so I hopped in a taxi and took a quick tour of the city. The Blue Mosque was just as beautiful as I had imagined.

Then I went to the Topkapi Palace across the street and do you know what they have in their museum?!?! The Rod of Moses. How on earth?! They also have the cloak of Muhammed and the turban of Joseph. Having walked in not expecting to see anything, I was a little taken aback at how they could have such artifacts. The Rod of Moses?! But you know what, it did feel really spiritual in there, so who knows. Anyway, all in all it was quite an interesting trip, capped off by my luggage not making it back on the plane with me. It apparently really liked the Amsterdam airport so it had stayed there over night. After all the other lovely new experiences, I thought this was a nice way to end things. Luckily, it came the next day as promised. Let's just say I'm not too excited to get back on the road next Wednesday!!!

For more pics of the trip, check out my myspace (link in the right column, or www.myspace.com/taiwanbecca).

Stranded in Kuwait

Here is an email that I wrote home to my family while I was in Kuwait that I thought others might also find interesting:

Things here in the Middle East have been a little rockier than on my usual trips. The world is just a TAD bit different over here. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to describe it in my email, but it reached its climax in my experiences today at the Kuwait Airport. Even though I had my paper ticket from in my hand when I went to check in, the man at the counter said he didn't see my name in the system and I had to go talk to the reservation counter. So I proceeded to said counter and he looked it up and told me I didn't have a ticket. I showed him the ticket in my hand and asked wasn't it a ticket?? He said it had been "cancelled" because the agent that arranged the ticket didn't enter some kind of number. He said my ticket was void. He said I needed to go talk to the man at counter #16. So I did, falsely thinking he might offer some kind of hope for my flight. He said that standby was my only option and that I simply needed to sit there and wait for the next two hours we had until the takeoff.

Then I discovered that even though this was supposedly due to error of my travel agent, there were two other people from the fair that this happened to. One of those people happened to be traveling with someone else in his office and their reservations were made by the same people. Interesting. As time grew closer, more and more people (not part of our group) were likewise displaced. So we waited those two hours, only to be told that there was nothing they could do for us. Period. End of story. This was a paid for ticket, completely rejected. They only fly to Bahrain once per day, at 5 o'clock, and the fair was set to start at 5 the next day, so we couldn't wait that long. The three of us tried to get on another airline and the only other airline was flying out at 10 pm, but that was completely booked as well. So we are on the first flight out in the morning and found the last three rooms in a hotel close to the airport. All I can say is that as selfish as it may sound, I'm glad I wasn't the only one in our group that got bumped. At least we have each other in this crazy country!!

I haven't had the best impression of this place, starting with being bumped from our hotel before we even got there!! I know, it's like they don't want us here or something. We had all booked rooms at the Crowne Plaza through the fair organizer. Since the fair was going to be held there, they got us a group rate to all stay there. Again, we had RESERVATIONS. Well, apparently, the crowne prince or somebody special came into town and the needed the rooms. So...our entire group got the boot to the Holiday Inn across town the night before we got here. We had some more drama when we first landed and had to get our visas. What we all thought would be a simple process took two hours in total--longer than it took for us to fly here from Dubai. Once we finally got our visas and went back down and stood in line at immigration, this man came and snatched my passport out of my hand and said, "Not finished, not finished." Then he started snatching other peoples in our group and we were told we all had to leave the line to get one more stamp first at this other desk where there was no one sitting and no one seemed to care or want to help us, they just all kept telling us we weren't finished. Wow. We finally made it through and were welcomed at the hotel by a metal detector and having to put all our luggage through a screener. So inviting.

Back to Blogging

I have received some comments from folks that maybe I should add a little bit more to this blog of ours. It is pretty obvious that I haven't done anything with it since creating it back in November. Now it is February almost March and I think it's time for us to really get serious. We have been a little distracted by the busy-ness of the holidays, which were a lot of fun and Aaron starting up his own blog. He was inspired by Elder Ballard's talk at BYU-Hawaii encouraging people to start up blogs as a missionary tool. As Aaron is a ward missionary at our new ward in Bellevue, he liked the idea and took the challenge. Even though he has only had it for awhile, there are a lot of interesting posts on there with some interesting comments. If you haven't already, you should check it out at www.graceforgrace.com or by simply following the link on the right. My work has also been pretty busy lately--sending me to the Middle East and Turkey (which I plan on writing an earful about, so stay tuned for stories by far my most interesting trip ever) and then I will be leaving again for Taiwan this week. Too much travel for newylweds, I tell you what!!