Bean Greetings

Whew! I’ve had a lot of late nights lately helping test new features at work. We just released something I’ve been hoping for all year… holiday cards!

Many of my loyal readers (as in, like 3 out of 5 of you) have asked me what I do for work. Well, in addition to testing this new feature, I wrote our product page for the greeting cards and the corresponding help page. Don’t laugh! It’s harder than it looks.

Our customers have been begging for holiday cards for months and hopefully these will be just in time! I know I’m glad that I don’t have to order my greeting cards from Kodak this year.

Just look how darling my new niece looks on one of our cards:

And of course, one of my favorite dogs:

So with that… I’d like to wish you a Happy Kwanzaa (and a good night’s sleep for me):

So lucky

Scott and I really felt strongly that Columbus was where we needed to be for medical school, but I wasn’t sure I’d actually like it all that much. I thought of it as being “doable” for 4 years and then we’d move on to someplace we enjoyed.

Well, I was totally wrong. I love it here!

I was getting my haircut today (a once in a blue moon occurrence) and the “stylist” was griping about the weather here and I realized I don’t mind it a bit. Not that it doesn’t get pretty humid, and grey, and windy, and pretty cold and pretty hot… ok so maybe the weather isn’t all that great after all… but my point is:

Who cares about weather when the people here are so fantastic!

I’m continually blown away by the caliber of people I’ve met in Columbus. I often feel that they are 10x better friends to me than I am to them, but what’s a girl to do? Just enjoy it and try and reciprocate the kindness when I can.

Maybe (just maybe) it’s because I’m pregnant and my emotions tend to be close to the surface these days, but I was thinking tonight about how blessed Scott and I have been with good friends… and I couldn’t help but get teary-eyed.

I have every opportunity to be a hermit, what with working from home and having Scott studying from home most of the time, and I realize now that my connection with the real world is through my girl friends. We chat about everything from pregnancy to politics (ok well not often politics, actually) and I always come away with a smile on my face.

Here’s a little something to put a smile on your face:

http://cmac.smugmug.com/gallery/3801270#219476586-A-LB

SmugMug now has great video support, so my family has been adding home movies like crazy. I thought that one was particularly good because about halfway through, it shows how my taste in foods have changed.

Note to self: Acquire video camera so I can take embarrassing video of Baby Bean.

Photos from Maui

As I mentioned, Scott and I went with my parents to Maui for a week and had a fabulous time.

We sprinkled my grandmother’s ashes in the ocean from an outrigger canoe, had some great sushi, and snorkeled nearly every day. There’s a putting green at Napili Kai, where my Grandma had a condo, and great puzzles in the lobby. We barbecued fish and pineapple on the beach several nights and we also hiked to lots of “secret” waterfalls that Scott and I had discovered while exploring our last time on the island. That’s the Reader’s Digest version.

Now for the photos.

Did someone ask for a belly pic?

I think I made history by incorporating green onions AND brown sugar into the same Halloween “costume”.

For all of you pregnant ladies out there looking for good ideas for maternity Halloween costumes, look no further than Crayola Kid’s Paint. Scott and I had a blast. We’re not normally big on Halloween, but this was an experience we won’t soon forget.