Merry Christmas from the Hochsteins!

Merry Christmas! Here's some of the few Christmas decorations in the Hochstein home this year. Grandma Millie gave us a few of her decorations that she doesn't use anymore. We splurged and bought our first nativity set at Deseret Book for $4. I made the stockings -- my first sewing project! (One of my friends out here had to monitor every move I made. I wish I had paid attention when my mom tried to teach me. . .) And of course, we have the 25 1/2 week bump. It's getting quite largo. Woohoo! ! Yay for big bellies! ! We wish the best for the holidays!

December Ultrasounds!

This ultrasound was another 4-D, and we should have been able to see the baby's face pretty well, but once again the baby was snuggled into my side and had his hands in front of his face (sucking his thumb?). So what we got on the screen was several minutes of orange and black shadows with an occasional bone or brain flashing across the screen. It kind of felt like a scary movie at times, but it was really exciting too. The kind-of okay images we got of the baby could also qualify for images out of a scary movie, but at least we can see a little of his face. The best picture we got out of it was of his cute bum and sexy legs. The 2-D pic we got looks a whole lot like last month's. He must like that pose. We did find out that he has all his fingers and toes, and all the bone structure we could see was in place. The heart is healthy, brain is there, kidneys are there. . . um I think that is all the technician pointed out. Yay! We are having a baby!

Catch Up! Thanksgiving in Georgia!

I LOVED Thanksgiving! It's my favorite holiday. Food, Family, and Football, can life be better? Here are a few pics of the memories: I made banana pudding pie for pie night(we had to serve it with a spoon, it was still pudding trying to pose as a pie, but it tasted good so who cares? ) . We played tennis as a family and Pete sat on the sidelines while showing off his girlish figure, I love the pic of him. Justin and I took my sister's dog, Jack, to the park to run around. I don't know who was happier. . . I hung out with Jess, Meg, and our husbands and went to the Dialogue in the Dark. Really cool, I am glad I am not blind, but it's cool to see life through a blind person's "eyes." I MISS GEORGIA! ! ! I'm excited to go back in January!

Catch Up! New Kids! Yessss!

I went to the New Kids on the Block concert in November with my friend Daniela. I felt like I was 11 again. They are still good. Their new stuff is not my favoritest, but the oldies still made me happy. I dressed up for the occasion, and that really made me feel like I was 11 again. Except when I was 11 I wouldn't have been caught dead in a skirt outside of church. I bought a T-shirt and the greatest hits CD just for kicks.

Brooke's been doing such a great job keeping everyone in our lives up to date on what's new with us that I thought I'd give it a try. Believe it or not you are all witnessing history... this is my first blog EVER!

Last week I was able to go TDY to Vandenberg AFB in California to witness a Minuteman III missile launch. For anyone who isn't familiar, the Minuteman III is our nation's current long range Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, or ICBM, which can carry up to three nuclear warheads. I definitely consider it a privilege that I was able to go.

Vandenberg is well known for the fog that will roll in, so a lot of us were concernced that we wouldn't be able to see anything. I was there for the last launch back in August when I was attending Space 100, and the fog was so thick that we couldn't see a thing. This time we ended up having perfect conditions. It was a crystal clear night. We were able to see all three stages of the missile separate, even thrust termination. It was really neat to see the weapon system that I work on in action; however, it was a little scary at the same time. When you realize what that missile would be carrying in the event of a real world missile launch, it's a little frightening to know what the beginning of the end of the world might look like.



I had a great time out in California, but I definitely missed Brooke while I was gone. The best part was coming back home to her.

November Ultra Sounds

One day our son will LOVE that I posted these pictures. Maybe I will show them to his future wife.
Quote from the ultrasound nurse -- "Look! He's making his own arrow!"
The face ultra sound looks a lot like an alien again. It's pretty cool. Unfortunately, the ultrasound printer ate it before it came out. I guess the baby was in a bad position for the full body pic.

The 19 Week Bump

Well, I am showing. It's the first thing out of people's mouths each day now. Thank heaven for stretch jeans and skirts with elastic waists.

Tribute

Thank you late 80s early 90s.
Next week I am going to see New Kids on the Block in concert. I know you are jealous. I've only waited 17 years for this moment. My 11th birthday party was New Kids themed - we wore the t-shirts, the buttons on our stone-washed tight-rolled jeans, and while the music video (which we rented for the occasion) was playing, we would pause it on our favorite boy and kiss the screen.

Tonight Justin and I were reminiscing about the great music of that time and we realized that these totally righteous bands rocked our worlds and helped make us who we are today. (For clarity, Justin is not going to the concert with me. He wanted that to be made perfectly clear.)

A tribute to the music of our pubescent years:

New Kids on the Block

Vanilla ICE

MC Hammer -- We all loved the pants at one time. Don't deny it.

Milli Vanilli -- So they faked it. They didn't fake the moves.

Tag Team --

Kriss Kross

The Fresh Prince -- I had no idea who he was till I watched the TV show later.

And last but definitely not least, Pearl Jam. Justin just got their fan club magazine in the mail. Rock on. I didn't know who these guys were till about five years after Justin knew them. If Justin gets his way, Eddie Vedder's name will show up somewhere in our posterity.

Do yall have any others that come to mind?

Grandpappy Pumpkinhead

Halloween was fun! We had kids show up at our door at 6:00. Holy moly they come early nowadays. We went to a party with some of Justin's friends and left a bucket of candy on our front porch. Justin went back for it because Daniela was running out of candy at her house. One girl showed up trick-or-treating on her cell phone. Wow. Justin and I didn't decide on a costume until the night before, which meant we opened my trunk and dug out what I already had. We thought having Justin dress up as Doogie might be fun, but the halo and horns made it out the door with us. Doogie may show up next year.
I love my pumpkin. Yes, I made the one with the grill. I strayed from my triangles and ventured into new pastures. I was trying for Nightmare Before Christmas, and today it looks like Grandpa With No Dentures. It cracks me up, I think I like it more now than when I first made it.

Attack the Pumpkin!

We officially have Halloween decorations! Guess which one I made and which one Justin made. . . Justin actually did most of the dirty work for both of them, after a few handfuls of goo I found I didn't scrape the insides effectively. We still have no idea what we are going to dress up as for our Halloween party.

Czech on an 8-Track

When you are a local from South Dakota, you call it SoDak. Justin and I spent the weekend in the rockin town of Yankton, South Dakota. We flew into Omaha airport; it was my first time there, and I was overwhelmed with how HUGE that airport was! I think it took about four minutes to walk from our terminal to baggage claim. We even stopped first in the souvenir shop. Then we drove with Justin's two brothers to Yankton. In case you don't know where that is, it's in the SE corner of South Dakota, almost in Nebraska, and almost in Iowa, but not quite. They just built a new bridge, and let me tell you, it is the talk of the town. We drove over it twice, once at night and once during the day, to get the full effect. Justin's parents threw a very lovely wedding party for us and I FINALLY met Justin's extended family. They are hilarious, I love being in this family. I also met the doctor who delivered Justin, he was Justin's neighbor. One of the highlights for sure was visiting Justin's grandpa Podzimek (most of Justin's relatives have crazy last names. Hochstein is relatively calm.) His grandpa is 93 and his mind is as sharp as a whip. I'd bet he knows the capitol of Djibouti. He told us stories of growing up speaking Czech (his grandparents were immigrants), and my favorite story took place in a department store in the early 40s. There was a monkey in a cage in the store who was making faces at him. Grandpa didn't like that so much, so he walked up to the monkey and spit in his eye. He then got out of that store as quickly as possible. I like Justin's grandpa. We rocked out to Czech music on an 8-track player. All in all, Yankton was beautiful, the weather was great, and being with Justin's family was priceless.

He's gonna be a soccer playa

IT'S A BOY! ! ! ! We just found out tonight! Woooohooooooo!

Okay so I edited this to put the ultrasound pics up for my momma. I can't imagine that this baby is comfortable. He's all cuddled up into the side of me. Thanks everyone for the congratulations!

WHAT?! SNOW?!!?!?!?!?!???!!!!!

I am not ready for this! ! ! Aaaauuughghghgh! Justin woke me up this morning when he semi-freaked out while looking out the window. He barely kissed me good morning before he threw on his sweats to go use our new snow shovel for the first time. Justin was a thinker and bought the shovel while the weather was still in the 90s, just in case. He was sort of grumbling about the snow, but I think he was excited to go play in it. We didn't even get a warning this time! Usually we have a few days of flurries and cold weather, right? Yesterday was the day of warning I guess. It was cold and rainy. Now there are four inches of snow on the ground. The base has a rule that you are responsible to keep your sidewalk clear when it snows. We live on the inside curve in the road and have lots of sidewalk. Justin likes shoveling, but I can just imagine me out there while he's out of town with my fat belly pushing snow around. . . I will say though, this snow is absolutely beautiful.

OUT WITH OLD (hopefully), IN WITH THE NEW

We bought a car! Wooohooo! The starter in the dear, old, many-miled Infiniti died, and I trapped Justin's car in our driveway because our driveway is on an incline and in order to get out of the driveway we had to push the dead-weight Infiniti UP the driveway. I know it's hard to believe, but mine and Justin's muscles just couldn't budge that car. Luckily Justin has some incredible friends who left work and came over (not too hard since we live on base where they work) and the three guys in military garb pushed me and the car up the hill and out of the way. It works great now with a new starter. We are done fixing that car. There's an ad for it on KSL.com.

We are now the proud owners of a 2008 Accord! It's nice. Justin fell in love at first drive. We had already test-driven a 2009 Legacy and a 2008 Camry. Legacy was really nice, and we'd heard that Subaru was the way to go, but the back seat was not very spacey. And we need that back seat space! I would have loved the Camry, but the only model the dealer had that we wanted was white. White is not good in Utah where there is dirty air, making your car dirty the second you clean it. So the Accord won. It will serve as our baby car for the next couple years. I just couldn't get a van! We were looking at vans online, and I just couldn't picture myself driving a van for the next six months with no baby. I'm not sure I can picture myself driving one WITH a baby! So Justin will get the Accord in a couple years when we get a van. Maybe we'll be ready then. Maybe they will have vans that run off soda and garbage instead of gas by then. Too bad there's no flux capacitor to help us know for sure.

Woah Baby

11 weeks old. Due April 6th. Not as alien as I expected! It's really in there!

We're back from California!

The trip started out a bit rough -- I drove by myself. My car overheated through 110 degrees and then through the entire Mojave desert. Solution to not using AC so my car didn't die = Ice packs up the shirt and frozen water bottles in the armpits. Works like a charm. Needless to say I was disgusting by the time I arrived. I made it a two day trip, stopping at Uncle Jim and Aunt Penny's in Las Vegas. BUT highlight of the drive through America's less-than-luscious deserts. . . my car hit 200000 miles.

The first weekend we went to Hearst Castle and toured the future Hochstein residence. I'll take it. Twist my arm. I was super sick the whole tour, and Justin's physical support was the only thing that kept me on my feet. Great husband, pansy wife. Then we looked at a bunch of fat seals lying on the beach. It was hilarious. About 75 people were lined up along the fence, watching a line of fat, smelly, hardly moving seals. Whenever one flipped a flipperfull of sand on it's back, it sent a ripple of excitement through the crowd. THEN, it really got exciting, and a couple seals decided they wanted some cooler sand to lie on, they awkwardly worm crawled/flopped their rolling fat a few feet, stretched toward the sky, then collapsed on the sand and played dead again. I do not have a pictures of a fat seal on the beach, in case there is any confusion.

When I wasn't with Justin because he was going to Space class at Vandenberg AFB, I was staying in Santa Barbara with my Aunt LeeAnn Olson and family. They have a house overlooking the Santa Barbara valley, perfect weather, perfect distance from the beach. . . perfect. I was lazy the whole week. I read the last book of the Twilight series in about 1.5 days. Then I read a bunch of What to Expect When You're Expecting. Great book. Wouldn't recommend it for long reading, though. It's a bit like reading an encyclopedia. Well, I guess it still has beginning-middle-end, but anyway. I also visited my dear friend, Marissa Widdison during the week.

Justin Graduated, got his space wings, and we said adios to beautiful Vandenberg AFB. We spent the weekend in San Francisco with my mission friends, Amber and Jenn Dunn, then we trucked it back to the Utah. And we made it! Wooohooo! I have a husband again!

Pregnant!

There is a baby inside me! I'm two months along, one month of morning sickness to go (I hope it's only one more month. . .). The pics I see of what my baby looks like right now resemble a little alien. It's crazy to think that we turn out normal.
I went to my first Officer's Spouses Club social this week, and I was pointed to the "best" OB in the area, Jed Naisbitt, and I guess he takes Ultrasounds every appointment. So I get to see my baby grow! Yay!

Upon Request

The Hochsteins have entered the world of blogging. Here is a summary us right now at this very moment:
- We live on Hill Air Force Base in Clearfield, UT (if you don't know where that is like I didn't, it's between Layton and Ogden). We're in a "cute" 3-bed, 2-bath duplex. It was built in the 60s, so we don't lick the paint. Otherwise. . .
- Justin, Mr. 1st Lieutenant, is far away in the land of California at a class, learning about space, satellites, and other classified military information. He's been gone since July. He'll be back in two weeks. Woohooo!
- Brooke (I) am working at the Family History Library on the main floor as a consultant. I was hired as a temp, and after Monday, my contract will be up. I will be heading out to lie on the beaches of SoCal till Justin is done, and when I get back, I may still have a job at the FHL. The big boss is trying to talk HR into keeping me on Staff. We'll see. I'm not too worried about it.
- Last weekend Justin and I met up in Las Vegas to have a little fun, and boy was it full of adventure and surprises. Updates to come.

The End.